For this edition the author has cut the notes by about half; readers interested in the full apparatus are referred to the German edition.
PROLOGUE
1. This Ranke quotation is cited in one of Konrad Heiden’s books. The author is aware of his indebtedness to Heiden in many respects. His was the earliest historical study of the phenomena of Hitler and National Socialism, and in the boldness of its inquiry and the freedom of its judgment it remains exemplary to the present day.
2. Speech of February 24, 1937, in the Munich Hofbräuhaus; see Kotze and Krausnick, p. 107.
3. Trevor-Roper, ed., Foreword to Le Testament politique de Hitler, p. 13.
4. Speech of May 20, 1937; see Kotze and Krausnick, p. 223.
5. Jacob Burckhardt, Force and Freedom: Reflections on History, pp. 313 ff. With Hitler in mind, Gottfried Benn in a famous letter to Klaus Mann specifically referred to Burckhardt’s observation. Benn wrote: “But here and now you may constantly hear the question: did Hitler create the Movement or did the Movement create him? This question is significant; the two cannot be distinguished because they are both identical. What is really involved here is that mysterious coincidence of the individual and the communal that Burckhardt speaks of in his Reflections on History, when he describes the great men who have moved history. Great men—it is all there: the dangers of the beginning, their appearance almost always in times of terror, the enormous perseverance, the abnormal facility in all things, especially in organic functions; but then also the premonition of all thinking persons that he is the one to accomplish things that are essential and that only he can accomplish.” Gottfried Benn, Gesammelte Werke IV, pp. 246 f.
6. Jacob Burckhardt, p. 339.
7. Thomas Mann, “Bruder Hitler,” in: Gesammelte Werke XII, p. 778.
8. Kühnl, “Der deutsche Faschismus,” in: Neue politische Literatur, 1970:1, p. 13.
9. Jacob Burckhardt, p. 325.
10. Hitler speaking to the chiefs of the Wehrmacht in the chancellery on May 23, 1939; see Domarus, p. 1197.
11. Mein Kampf, p. 353.
12. Jacob Burckhardt, p. 325.
BOOK I
1. Cf. Dietrich, Zwölf Jahre, p. 149. See also Heiden, Geschichte, p. 75.
2. Ribbentrop, p. 45.
3. Maser, Hitler, p. 34. For Frank’s story see Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens, pp. 320 f.; also Maser, Hitler, pp. 26 f. Maser cannot, of course, prove his thesis. Nevertheless, he advances his argument as if it were conclusive. Even the fact that Hitler waited until after his wife’s death to legitimize Alois is, to Maser, in favor of his argument, although that fact suggests just the opposite of his conclusion. It is reasonable to assume that Hitler would have been prompted to such an act of consideration only if he wished to admit that he himself was the father and had legitimized Alois as his own son. All the other arguments are equally dubious. In general, Maser cannot suggest any plausible motive for Hüttler’s conduct. It is a very old assumption that Hitler insisted on the change of name as a condition for appointing Alois Schicklgruber his heir; cf., for instance, Kubizek, p. 59. We must add that the question of who Hitler’s grandfather was is really of secondary importance. Only Hans Frank’s version could have given it a new psychological dimension; aside from that, it is merely a matter of minor interest.
4. Mein Kampf, p. 6.
5. Mein Kampf, pp. 8, 10.
6. Mein Kampf, p. 10.
7. Mein Kampf, p. 18. Hitler alleged a “serious lung ailment,” but the assertion will not hold water. Cf. Jetzinger, p. 148; also Heiden, Hitler I, p. 28. The episode is also reported in Zoller, p. 49, where Hitler traces his dislike for alcohol back to it. On the incident of the discarded report card cf. Maser, Hitler, pp. 68 ff.
8. Kubizek repeatedly stresses Hitler’s striking tendency to confound dream and reality. See, for example, pp. 100 f. For the episode of the lottery ticket (which follows here), see pp. 127 ff.
9. Kubizek, p. 79.
10. Ibid., pp. 140 ff. However, the scene appears to have been exaggerated and retouched. On the whole, Kubizek’s credibility is suspect. His memoirs were conceived with the intention of glorifying Hitler. The value of the book consists less in demonstrable facts than in the descriptions and character judgments that quite often emerge against the author’s will.
11. Mein Kampf, p. 5. Hitler speaks of the “lovely dream” on p. 18. Cf. the letter to Kubizek dated August 4, 1933, in which Hitler speaks of the “best years of my life”; facsimile in Kubizek, p. 32.
12. Oral communication from Albert Speer. On Hitler’s fantasy of withdrawing from politics see Tischgespräche, pp. 167 f.
13. Cf. Andies, p. 192. Also, for this and the previously mentioned facts and statistics: Jenks, pp. 113 ff. In 1913, 29 per cent of the students in the Faculty of Medicine were Jews, 20.5 per cent in the Faculty of Law, and 16.3 per cent in the Faculty of Philosophy. By contrast, the Jewish proportion among criminals was 6.3 per cent, considerably lower than the Jewish proportion in the population at large. Cf. Jenks, pp. 121 f.
14. Mein Kampf, p. 19. The following “classification list” is printed in Heiden, Hitler I, p. 30 (Der Führer, p. 52).
15. Mein Kampf, p. 20.
16. Ibid., p. 20.
17. Quoted in Maser, Hitler, pp. 82 ff. Cf. also the report of the Vienna Gestapo dated December 30, 1941, quoted in Smith, p. 113.
18. Mein Kampf, pp. 21 f.
19. We owe the precise calculation of Hitler’s monthly income to Franz Jetzinger, who with pedantic ingenuity has tracked down all the sources of such income. The comparison to the earnings of a junior magistrate is also his. It is interesting to note, incidentally, that at this time Mussolini was employed in Austrian Trent as editor-in-chief of L’Avvenire del Lavoratore and secretary of the socialist Labor Bureau. For these two jobs he received a total income of 120 crowns—not much more than Hitler’s income as one of the unemployed. See Kirkpatrick, Mussolini.
20. Kubizek, pp. 126, 210–20, 256 f., 307. Also Jetzinger, pp. 194 ff. For Hitler’s remark that he heard Tristan in Vienna thirty or forty times, see Cameron and Stevens, Hitler’s Secret Conversations, pp. 270 f. Jenks, p. 202, has shown that during Hitler’s years in Vienna Richard Wagner was incontestably the most popular operatic composer; at the Hofoper alone Wagner operas were given on at least 426 evenings during that period.
21. Tischgespräche, pp. 275, 323, 422. Also Kubizek, p. 199, describes Hitler venting his anger upon the Academy. This must refer to his first rejection, since Kubizek was not in Vienna at the time of the second rejection and saw nothing of Hitler again after he returned.
22. Mein Kampf, p. 23. In much the same sense Stefan Zweig notes in Die Welt von gestern, p. 50, “the worst threat that existed in the bourgeois world was falling back into the proletariat.” See also Heiden, Geschichte, p. 16.
23. Greiner, p. 25. Greiner’s memories of Hitler raise many questions. In contrast to Kubizek he has no proof of the close acquaintanceship that he claims to have had with Hitler. Nevertheless, his work does contain a number of hints that increase our knowledge. His evidence can be used, however, only to the extent that it is supported by other accounts, or by other examples of similar behavior on Hitler’s part.