What struck me as I read Mein Kampf were the peculiar instances where Hitler showed empathy for another living thing. It is hard to imagine a man who would commit the atrocities he did to have any human emotions, but I think it is too simple to write Hitler off as being that way. The first instance I noticed in the reading was when he described feeding the mice in his room bread crumbs. He says, “I had known so much poverty in my life that I was well able to imagine the hunger, and hence also the pleasure, of the little creatures,” (220). Here, he observes the living conditions of the mice and imagines their pains and struggles, as he recalls past personal experiences in which he too felt these emotions.
Later, as Hitler discusses the impracticalities in the way the prevention of syphilis was attempted, he raises the plight of a woman who would bring her case before a court. He recognizes the inequalities facing women in society, noting that “she will be struck much harder by the contempt of her loveless fellow creatures than would be the case with a man,” (256). He goes on to imagine if the man she caught the disease from was her husband, and asks “Should she accuse him? Or what else should she do?” (256). He is raising sympathy for a human being in an unfortunate situation and actively thinks through the choices offered them. This hypothetical woman was even someone Hitler clearly looked down upon, as a potentially promiscuous woman with a sexually transmitted disease.
If Hitler was not incapable of such emotions as sympathy and empathy, how was he so unable to extend these feelings towards Jews? Even if, through racism or simply egotism, one believes himself superior to another being, it doesn’t automatically lend itself to the vicious policies Hitler would make towards the Jews. In fact, in one passage where Hitler is describing the so called crimes of the Jew in Russia, he says the following: “he killed or starved about thirty million people with positively fanatical savagery, in part amid inhuman tortures,” (326). So it appears that there are actions that he considers savage and inhuman. Strange, coming from a man who attempted complete genocide.
I want to question Hitler’s reputation as being a failed artist. His beginnings in life as an aspiring artist hold one answer to viewing his actions for the rest of his life. Hitler failed as an artist of paintings and drawings, but he carried with him notions of an artist his entire life and forgetting that he retained grandiose artistic dreams can lead to incomplete analyses.
ReplyDeleteAfter his failed attempt at the Viennese art academy and several years of casting about, he came upon the theater. He realized political theater was his perfect medium. He discovered that he could take up a pen and fictionalize history while playing the role of the title character himself. He realized that speechmaking, the art of persuasion, is itself an art form. Dramatic stage entrances and exits, underhanded tactics and high drama, the assumption of a leader’s mythic stature, grand decisions affecting millions of lives bornand unborn, eloquent speeches to be made, elegant uniforms and military parades—these characteristics of political theater ideally suited Hitler’s emerging dramatis persona. And he discovered that most people are willing to read a script given to them that includes them in some special way, even if only a few occasional lines.
Kershaw writes about Hitler as an actor, saying “those who came into contact with Hitler…were convinced he was acting much of the time. He could play the parts as required (p.280).” Kershaw also mentions a story Putzi Hanfstaengl told about Hitler visiting his home. Hitler has just come from prison and is recounting his tale when he stops mid-sentence and looks around the room suspiciously as though someone might be watching through a peephole, as he had to endure in his tortuous prison experience. “It was, as Hanfstaengl realized, a pathetic piece of play-acting. Putzi had seen Hitler in Landsberg, relaxed and comfortable; and there had been no peephole in his room (p.261).”
However, Hitler’s largest performance as an actor might still be taking place. In another of Kershaw’s books about Hitler, he writes about how Hitler, being the grand, heroic figure of Germany that he was, took upon himself the micromanagement of the war and subsequently killed himself physically with stress and overwork. His rapid aging and physical deterioration begins as Germany starts losing momentum about 1942. By the end of the war, Hitler has degraded physically to the point where saliva is dripping from his mouth and he can barely stand up and walk. Kershaw claims he likely had Parkinson’s disease. For some time, by then, his generals and staff had been issuing orders with only limited direction from Hitler.
Hitler’s greatest triumph as an actor may be convincing the rest of the world that he was in charge not only of Germany but also of his mental faculties until he shot himself. It seems possible that he had lost much of his ability to make decisions about the war effort, that his orders were completely arbitrary and without any reason behind them. While the Allies were vilifying a devious Hitler, the real Hitler seems to have been more like an ailing invalid.