Few men in the whole of histoly and none in modern times have been the cause of human suffering on so large a scale as Hitler, who died in Berlin yesterday. If history judges to be greatest those who fill nmost of her pages, Hitler was a very great man; and the house-painter who became for a while master of Europe cannot be denied the most remarkable talents. He found Germans depressed, bewildered, aimless. After five years in office he had united the German race in a single Reich, abolished regional diversities of admini- stration, and got rid of unemployment. But these achievements were merely instru- ments of an overwhelming lust for power. Nazi domination over Germany was a stepping stone towards the domination of Nazi Germany over the world. The pro- cess was continuous, and the methods were the same. Hitler effected the triumph of the Nazi Party in Germany bv a mixture of deceit and violence; he then employed the same devices to destroy other nations. From the time he became master of Germany he made lies, cruelty, and terror his principal nmeans to achieve his ends; and he becanme in the eyes of virtually the whole world an incarnation of absolute evil. Hitler was unimpressive to meet on informal occasions, but became transformed when he was face to face with a crowd, especially if it was an audience of his followers. He would speak to tihem like a man pwssessed and give the appearance of utter exhaustion when his speech was over. His speeches betrayed few if any original ideas, and cven his belief in the sugestive power of reiteration scarcely justificd the repetitions of past history with which most of his public orations were over- laden. He was, however, a propagandist of the first order, and his uncannily subtle and acute understanding of the mind of his own people was the ultimate source of his power lor evil.
EARLY YEARS
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, at Braunau-am-lnn, on the frontier, as he said himself, of the two German States, the reunion of wvhich he regarded as a work worthy to be accomplished by any and every means. His parents were of Bavarian, and peerhaps Bohemian, peasant descent, and his father- wlho until his fortieth year was known as Schicklgruber-was a Customs officer in the Austrian service and married three times-Adolf being the only son of his young thir d wife. Adolf was sent to the best school available, being intended for the Government service, though he himself had artistic inclinations. In 1902 his father died suddenly, leaving no resources available for the continued cducation of his son. From 1904 to 1909 the young Hitlcr lived a life of hardship. He moved after the loss of his mother to Viennia where he had dreams of Pecoming an architect, but could earn only a hazardous livelihood as assistant to a house- painter and by selling sketches. For three years he lived the life of the poorest man in Vienna, sleeping in a men's hostel, eating the bread of charity at a monastery, occasionally I reduced to begging. The food for thought also presented gratuitously by life in a great city, to such as care to receive it) was not left untasted by him. Hazy legends like the Nordic saga jostled in his mind with illusions regarding the ennobling effect of war and with more rational dreams of German national unity. He saw and hated the growing Slav ascendancy and the enfeeblement of the German elements in the racially mixed Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. He drank in the pan-Germanism of Luege. in wihich all the original elements of " Hitlerism " arc to be found. He read assiduously the works of Marx and his disciples, and thoroughly disagreed with their conclusions. i-c discovered the Jews and acquired a fanatical aversion to them. By 1910 he had so far improved his professional posi- tion as to be able to set up as an independent draughtsman; and, still hoping to become an architect, removed to Mtinich thinking to find wider scope in the Bavarian capital. A year or two later the 1914-18 war broke out, and Hitler preferring to enrol himself in the German national army rather than in the polyglot forces of the Hapsburgs, although he was an Austrian subject, joined the 16th Bayarian Reserve Regiment as a volunteer. His war service was meritorious, but not distinguished. He won the Iron Cross, and rose to the rank of corporal. He was wounded in the battle of the Somme in 1916, and badly gassed in the later stages of the war. It was while lying in a Berlin h6spital, temporarily blinded, that lie learned of the events known as the November Revolution of 1918.
POLITICAL CAREER BEGUN
On leaving hospital he returned to Munich. That pleasant city soon became the prey of his enemies the Marxists. The reactionl against thicir rdgime made a breeding-ground for Fascism. It was at that moment that Hitler began his political career. Thousands of bewildered and workless young Germans were meeting and talking and propounding every sort of theory and scheme. Hitler possessed what most of these fumblers lacked, a few definite ideas and a knowledge of the value and of the art of propaganida. One nighlt he attended in Munich a meeting of a newly formed German Workers' Party, and decided to join it. He was its seventh member, and wvas not long in making himself its leader and his nationalist and anti-Marxist-creed its pro- gramme. The movement soon took hold in Bavaria. Hitler discovered his remarkable oratorical powers and proved himself an adept in the management of large meetings. He realized to the ftill the value of repetition and of reiterat- ing a single theme over and over again in a slightly different form. " All propaganda," lie said, " should adapt its intellectual level to the receptive ability of the least intellectual of those whom it is desired to address." A pillar of strength in these days wag Captain Rohm, a staff officer at Munich and a valued organizer in the councils of his military superiors. He won for Hitler tie tacit approval of the local high command and certain financial resources without which two-foid help little progrcss could have been achieved. Thus supported and encouraged, Hitler, in conjunction with Rohm, Gbring, General Ludendorff, and others, made his first attempt to seize power in the notorious Munich Pursch/ of November 10, 1923. They were met out- side the Feldherrnhalle by police, who -fired upon them, killing Hitler's nearest companion and 15 others. Hitler lay flat on his face. Only. Ludendorft marched straiglht on. As soon as the firing slackened Hitler, with a dislocated shoulder, fled in a motor-car, buit was arrested two days later and imprisoned in the fortress of Landsberg. During the nine months he spent there lie wrote the greater part of " Mein Kampf," that turgid, rambling, re- markable book of nearly 1,000 pages, which became the Bible of the Nazi movement. Hitler's authority declined after the fiasco of Munich, and for a while Gregor Strasser, the creator of the Nazi Party in North Ger- many, counted for more than he in the party ranks, whose strength in the Berlin Reichstag was no more than 12. Hitler gradually reasserted himself, however, and in the elections of 1930, when Dr. Briining was Chancellor, and when the economic crisis was already creating widespread un- employment and distress, .tbe nimber of National-Socialist Deputies jumped to 107. Ihe political situation rapidly deteriorated. Faced by the growth of the extremist vote and the chaotic state of the party system, the Chancellor was forced increasingly to govern by decree, and thoughi his, intentions were most geinuinely liberal, he k6-ad Germany far along the road to dictatorship. On May 30, 1932, lie fell after dealing Hitler two shrewd blows-the dissolution of the Brown Army and the r c-election of Field-Marshal Paul von Hindenburg as Reichspriisident in face of the fully mobilized Nazi vote in support of [litler's own candidature. Hitler regarded himself as heir to the Chancellbrship. But he had still 10 months to wait, 10 months of crisis during which he was thwarted, not by the now impotent Liberal and Socialist vote, not even by the vociferous Communists, who by their threats to the bourgeoisie were in- directly a help, but by the veiled resistance of the Right Wing of the old rTgiine, with its backing of Junkers, trade magnates, MIonarch- ists, and the enltoulrage of the now senile Reichsprasident. The appointment of the shifty von Papen as Chancelor to succeed Brtuning was followed by the rescinding of the latter's ban on the Brown Army as a bait to catch the Nazi support, and by a general election. At the polls Hitler more than doubled his vote, being returned with 230 followers, the largest party in the Reichstag. Hc demanded the Chancellor- ship, but Papen manoeuvred him into an inter- view with the Field-Marshal, hvbere Hitler, who was nervous and showed to little advant- age, received a pre-arranged rebuff. His prestige suffered considerably thereby, but worse was to follow. After three months of hopeless struggle in a hostile Reichstag Papen held another election. The Nazis lost 2,000,000 votes. A feeling of defeat spread throughoult .the party. Some of the leaders were in despair. In Germany and abroad it was thought that Hitler had passed his zenith. In the meantime the affairs of Germany prospered little better than those of the Bavarian ex-corporal. Papen had to resign in November, 1932, and was followed by General Kurt von Schleicher, the last Chancellor of the old regime, a clever man, who came near to destroying Hitler and paid the forfeit on June 30, 1934. Schleicher had the confidence of the Army, and, as far as anyone could, that of 1'resident von Hindenburg,' but he had no Parliamentary support, and was threatened by Papen, who regarded him as the cause of his own fall from power. Schleicher in December made a bid for independence. He thought to propitiate the Nazi strength by attracting to himself in a semi-Socialist admipistration Gregor Strasser.
CHANCELLOR AT LAST
REICHSTAG FIRE
It w as a critical moment. Hitler, who had borne the recent setbacks with surprising calm. now lost heart. " lf the party breaks up," he confided to Goebbels, "i 'll end matters with my pistol in three minutes." Schism indeed seemed imminent. But Strasser himself spoilt the scheme. He dallied and hesitated. The discussions were deferred, and before they could be resumed Schleicher had fallen. The tablcs hlad been suddenly turned by 'von Papen, who in January made an alliance with Hitler in order to overthrow Schleicher. The Nazi leader, whom he regarded as humbled by recent ill-fortune, was to be Chancellor and he himself Vice-Chancellor, with a majority of non-Nazi colleagues, the good will of the Presi- dent, and, he confidently hoped, the real power. The plan took shape, and on January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was formally invested with the seals of office as Reichskanzlcr. The new Government was a minority one, and decided to dissolve the Reichstag and hold another election, the third in nine months. In an unparalleled propaganda campaign, in which the opposition parties had to remain passive observers, voters were belaboured with the Communist menace. Yet the voting gave an absolute majority only to the combined Nazi and Nationalist Parties, and the uneasy alliance between IHitler and Hugenberg, the Nationalist leader, would perhaps have continued but for an event of the first importance, the Reichstag lire. Whoever lit the match, it was the Nazis who arranged and profited by- this act of incendiarism. Interpreted by them as a Com- munist act of terrorism, it was made the pre- text for the suspension of all constitutional liberties and the setting up of the Nazi dictator- ship under Hitler. The seizure of power by the Nazis.in March, 1933, brought to an end the hollow alliance w,ith the Nationalists under .Hugenbetg, who was forced to resign shortly afterwards. At the same lime the German Press was muzzled and put tinder the control of Goebbels. Unhampered by Parliamentary restrictions or Press criticism, Hitler and his licutenants pushed on with the Nazi revolu- tion. Force and unity were the guiding ideals, and every element within or outside Germany which witlhstood the overriding claims of German nationalism was marked down for destruction. The long struggle for power was now ended. The National-Socialist Party was faced with the task of consolidation, and this was set about with more zeal than unity of concep- tion or purpose. The .position of R6hm's Brown Army in the State and its relation to the Reichswehr and the position of the Stahlhelm, the armed organization of the Nationalists, were among the most thorny problems and involved much bitterness and heart-burning.
THE "BLOOD BATH"
SHOOTING OF ROHM
On July 1, 1934, the civilized wo.rld learnt with horror of the killings that had taken place the day before andi have since been known as the purge or the " blood bath." How many people lost their lives will never be known. The outstanding vktimsi were -Rnhm, Schleicher, and Strasser. On the night of June 29 Hitler flew from the Rhine- land to Munich and on to the place where Rohm was staying. Rohm was taken from his bed to Munich and shot. All over Germany similar scenes were being enacted. Leading officials of the party and comparative nonentities alike lost their lives. Many an act of private revenge was carried out that night. Hitler, in his statement to the Reichstag, said he had saved Germany from a plot of reactionaries, dissolute members of the Brown Army and the agents of a foreign Power. The reason for the massacre of June 30 may never be exactlv known, but apart from private rancours and rivalries it is generally believed that Rbhm aimed at having the Reichswehr embodied in his S.A. organization-which Hitler had the sense to ref use. The " blood bath " was officially approved by Field-Marshal von Hindenburg, who probably understood nothing of it. A month later, on August 2. the old man died, and withiln an hour Adolf Hitler was declared his successor. fle abjured the title of Reichs- priisident and elected to be known as Fuhrer and Kanzler. The poor man of Vienna was now the master of Germany, absolute lord cf 60,000,000 Europeans.
ARMAMENTS
Hitlc's advent heralded a series of in- creasingly grave breaches, of treaty obliga-l tions and challonges to European opinion Dr. Bruning had already claimcd cqualityl in arrimaments. This claim was vigorously re- peated by Hitler, and it was on the pretext that it had been too tardily admitted by the Powers that he abruptly left the League of Nations in October, 1933. Franco-British dis- cussions in London in February, 1935, for a general settlement wvere brusquely forestalled by Hitler's announcement of conscription for an army of lialf a million and thc creation of an Air Force. The British Government joined 'the French and Italian Governments in con- demning the unilateral repudiation of treat obligations, but a few Weeks later, in June, 1935, it concluded a naval agreement with I-litler granting him 35 per cent. of the naval strength of Great Britain and equality in sub- marines. To " his people," as he now called the Germans, it looked as though their Fthrer's tactics paid, while Europe could no longer ignore the fact that Germany was again a great Power. In March, 1936, Adolf Hitler, taking advan- tage of the embroilment of Great Britain and France with Italy over Abyssinia, suddenly occupied the demilitarized zone of the Rhine- land, at the same time denouncing the Treaty of Locarno, which he claimed had already been abrogated by the formation of the Franco- Russian Alliance. The military occupation of the Rhineland was the most serious as well as the most spectacular breach made so far in the facade of the Versailles Treaty. In conjunc- tion with the introduction of conscription it transformed the military situation. It deprived the Western Powers in one moment of the strongest weapon in their armoury, one that had been used in early post-war years, the free- dom of 'entry into German territorv. Hence- forward Hitler could hope to hold off an attack on his western front with one hand, while the other was free elsewhere. Thfe occupation of the Rhineland was accom- panied by a series of proposals addressed by Hitler to the world at large, and for the special attention of the French and British peoples -He offered a 25-year non-aggression pact, an' air pact for Western Europe, non-aggression pacts with his eastern -neighbours, and he even announced his readiness to return to the League of Nations under certain conditions. None of these proposals was taken seriously enough by the outside world for any concrete result to follow. Suspicion of Hitler was now growing, tlhough the world did not yet grasp the full b'aseness of Nazi technique, with its deliberate use of the lie as an instrument of policy whereby to hIlt futiure victims into a sense of security while some nefarious scheme was being developed elsewhere' Yet the FGhrer and Chancellor himself had asserted that the bigger the lie the better the chance of its being believed. The Rhineland cotip was followed by two years of digestion and consolidation, during which time German military preparations were pushed forward with increasing activity, and an economic reorganization aiming at self- sufficiency was undertaken. Events outside Germany in 1936 and 1937 increased the nervous tension in Europe and did much to strengthen Hitler's position. The policy of sanctions against Italy incompletely carried out through the machinery of the League of Nations made the worst of both worlds. It fell short of what was needed to save Ethiopia, but served_ to turn Mussolini from friendship and collaboration with the WVestem Powers to an increasingly close con- nexion -with Hitler, the foremost critic in Etirope of the League of Nations. This under- standing was given substantive form by the support accorded by the two totalitarian States to General Franco's cause in Spain, and was finally registered by the official establishment in September, 1937, of the Rome-Berlin Axis. By this diplomatic revolution Hitler won an im- portant European ally at the expense of the Powers of the Versailles " Diktat," whose prestige, both moral and material, had as a resuilt of these various events suffered a con- sifierable diminution.
SEIZURE OF AUSTRIA
ENTRY INTO VIENNA
In the early weeks of 1938 the storm centre of Europe shifted back to Berlin. Hitler engineered an abrupt crisis in Austro- German relations, which ended on March 11 by the violation of the frontier by the German Army and- the forcible incorpora- tion of Austria in the Reich. Mussolini, who in 1934, on the murder of Herr Dollfuss, had massed troops on the Brenner frontier, madc no move, and received the effusive thanks of the Fuhrer:-" Musso- lini: Ichz soll es Ilmen nie vergessen." Hitler's dramatic entry into Vienna a.few days later, after nearly a quarter of a century's absence, during which he had experienced every vicissitude of hope, despair, and triumph, was watched with curiosity and even sympathy by millions of people outside the Reich, whose Governments had in the past resoundingly refused to the constitutional requests of both Berlin and Vienna the tnion which the German Dictator had now achieved by force. The union of the Reich and the Ostmark, as Austria was now called, immediately raised the problem of Czechoslovakia, which con- tained a minority of some 3,500,000 Germans and was now surrounded by German territory on three sides. The question asked all over Europe was how soon would Bohemia share the fate of Austria. Hitler's assurance to the Czech Government that it had nothing to fear did not allay suspicion. A series of communal elections throughout Czechoslovakia in May raised to fever-pitch the excitement created in the German miority by the inclusion in the Reich of their Austrian co-racialists. At the annual meeting in September of the National- Socialist Party at Nuremberg Hitler stood as the avowed champion of the Sude- ten Germans, and their. demands imme- diately precipitated an acute European crisis involving the imminent risk of general war.. Hitler, with the German Army mobilized, Iis western front approaching a state of impregnability, faced by potential opponents who were mentally bewildered and militarily unprepared, and divided both geo- graphically and ideologically, was in a position to dictate his terms. In conferences at Berchtesgaden and Godesberg with Mr. Neville Chamberlain, and then at Munich, where M. Daladier and Mussolini, as well as Mr. Cham- berlain, were present, he put forward demands that France and Britain were not in a position to refuse. To save the peace of the world and to avoid their own destruction the Czechs were told that they must submit to the arrangements made by the four Great Powers at Munich, whereby all the German districts of Bohemia, together with the immense fortifi- cations of the Erzgebirge, were handed over absolutely to Germany. In eight months Hitler had added 10,000,000 of Germans to the Third Reich, had broken the only formidable bastion to German expansion south-eastwards, and had made himself the most powerful individual in Europe since Napoleon 1.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
A " PROTECrORATE "
In the course of his conversations with MvJr. Chamberlain Hitler had assured him that he had no more territorial claims to make in Europe-a phrase he had also used after the seizure of Austria. On March 15, 1939, the world was, however, startled to hear that the German Army was invading and overwhelming Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia, all that re- mained of the independent Republic. Presi- dent Hacha, who under German pressure had succeeded Dr. Benesh in the autumn, was sum- moned to Berlin and forced to. accept terms which made his country a " Protectorate " of the Reich. Hitler went to Prague to proclaim there another bloodless victory and then while the going was good travelled to Memel, which had been ceded under the Versailles Treaty to Litihuania, ardd announced its annexation on March 23. Poland had profited from the dismember- ment of Czechoslovakia by being allowed to annex the disputed region of Teschen. But she was marked down as the next victim. While German troops were still moving into Slovakia Hitler proposed to the Polish Government that' Danzig should be returned to Germany and that Germany should build and own a road connecting East Prussia witll the rest of the Reichi, in return for which Germany would gtiarantee the Polislh frontiers for 25 years- though a 10-year treaty of non-aggression already existed between the two countries, of whIch five years had stllI to 'run. Poland rejected the proposals and appealed to Great Britain and France for support. These countries at once gave Poland pledges to defend her independence, if necessary by war. The action of the Western Powers came as a shock to Hitler, who was further alarmed by negotiations shortly afterwards set on foot in Moscow by the French and British with the Soviet Government. The spectre of war on two fronts again arose to damp the German ardour for acquisition. Hitler, faced with the prospect of a clieck and a rebuff, fatal con- tingencies for an aspiring dictator, made his decision. Rather than give up his cherished, and indeed loudly proclaimed design of seizing Danzig arid the Polish Corridor. he was pre- pared to eat every word he had uttered in condemnation, derision, and defiance of the Bolshevist regime, and tO invite the Russians to agree to a non-aggression pact. Stalin on his side, finding the danger of a German attack suddenly exorcized, and distrusting the constancy of the Western Powers, was not unwilling to accept Hitlers overtures, and the Pact was signed on August 23.
HITLER STARTS WAR
With the disappearance of any likelihood of Russian assistance being given to the western allies IHitler saw no further obstacle in the way of an immediate attack on Pdland, and on August 31, 1939, he ordered the German Armies tdocross the frontier. The second world war had begun. With typical falsity Hitler and Ribbentrop-now his intimate and most per- nicious adviser-had offered the Polish Ambassador terms of settlement, and broad- cast them to the world, a few hours before the soldiers began the invasion, without, however, allowing the Ambassador time or mneans to convey them to his Government. The attack on Poland gave the world its first tast. of the horrors of a German Bli:zkrieg. Hitler went East to superintend the slaughter in person. It was a swift and terrible war which he waged in bitter hatred and, when the issue was clear, with crude boastings and gross lies at the expense of a broken nation. In a speec~h at Danzig on Scptembcr 19 he had the effrontery to declare that:-" Poland has worked for this war " and " peace was pre- vented bv a handful of (British) warmongers." On the same occasion he took up what he called the British " challenge " to a three years' conflict and announced that Germany possessed a new weapon. The grim business was over in a few weeks. Warsaw surrendered on September 24 and on October 5 Hitler visited it and swaggered among the ruins which were garlanded for the occasion. The next day, speaking in the Reichstag, he made what he called his last offer to the allies. It was a. remarkable rbetorical performance, though, obyiously nervous, he hurried through the phrases in which he described his new . friendship with the Russians. As a plea for peace it could, if only one of its premises had been sound and one of its promises could have been believed, scarcely have been bettered; but he had by that time to pay the price of his habitual contempt for truth. In early November he made a speech at Munich, on the anniversary of the Pwtsch of 1923, in which he said that he had given Goring orders to prepare for a five years' war. He ended earlier than had been expected and left the Burgerbrau beer cellar in which he made it for Berlin. Shortly after. wards there was an explosion in wlhich six people were killed and over 60 injured. The official German News Agency claimed that the attempt had been inspired by foreign agents and offered a reward of half a miUlion marks for. the discovery of the instigators. One George Elsen was arrested. Official Germans were infuriated with The Times for suggesting that the explosion was no surprise to the Fiihrer and that he had left early to avoid it.
FRANCE CRUSHED
On New Year's Day, 1940, Hitler declared that he was fighting for " a new Europe." On March IS he met Mussolini on the Brenner, a presage, as it was later recog- nized to be, of great events. In April came the invasions of Norway and Denmark, and in early May he was congratulating his troops on their sticcess and authorizing decora- tions for them. On May 10 his armies invaded Belgitm, Holland, and Luxembotirg, and on the same day he went to the Western Front. On the morrow he proclaimed that the lsoui' for the decisive battle for the future of the German nation had come. In less than a month the bells wverc rung in Germany to celebrate the victorious conclusion of what he called " the greatest battle of all time." A few days later lie congratulated Mussolini on the entry of Italy into the wdr. On June 22 the Armistice with France was signed. At that moment Hitler stood at the zenith of his success and power. Western Europe was his and there remained no one there to crush except Great Britain, weakened by her losses on the Continent and without an effective ally. As usual Goebbels was turned on to prepare the way.
BAITLE OF BRITAIN
VICTORY PROMISED FOR 1941
On July 19, speaking in the Reichstag, Hitler " as a victor " made his final appeal to " common sense " before proceeding with his campaign against her. He spoke with an un- usual sobriety, but there was no mistaking his threats. He had his answer from a united and determined Empire. On September 4 he reiterated his menaces. Then he unleashed the Lujiv'afc and the Battle of Britain began in earnest. On October 4 after a month of it he was back at thc Brenner to talk things over with Mussolini. In a few days his troops entered Rumania. A little later he went to the Spanish frontier for a discussion with General Franco with a view, it was thought, to tighten- ing the blockade of Great Britain. Before the end of the month he was back with Mussolini in Florence. He seemed about this time to understand that Great Britain could not be conquered from the air and to think increas- ingly in terms of U-boats. He described him- self as the " hardest man the German people have had for decades and, perhaps, for centuiries.". d ehp,fr [t his New Year's proclamation to the armv Hitler promised victory over Great Britain in 194! and added that every Power which ate of l democracy should die of it. He continued, for| he always seemed uneasy on this score, to place~ the blame for unrestricted air warfare on Mr. Churchill;, and he kept on expressing his confidence in the U-boat. All that spring, indeed, he seemed particularly eager to en- courage his followers. In April he invaded Yugoslavia and Greece and went to join his advancing armies. And all the time he kept hammering at Great Britain from the air and striking under water at her supply lines. On June 3, 1941, there was another meeting of the dictators on thc Brenner Pass, and it was suggested that there would be an imme- diate start in the organization of a Continental peace; but on June 22 he cast aside his mask and struck at Russia. Once again the Soviet Government became the " Jewish- Bolshevist clique," and once again he was free to indulge his inherent hatred of the Slav. There were the usual lengthy and disingenuous explanations; but they were not calculated to deceive close readers of " Mein Kampf." For at least five years, indeed, he had contem- plated this particular volte face, for in 1934 he had taken Dr. Rauschning into his con- fidence in regard to his intention if necessary to employ a Russian alliance as a trump card. In August he and Mussolini visited the Eastern Front. As a gage of affection he presented his brother-in-arms with a great astronomnical observatory. After a long silence. he spoke on October 4 at the opening meeting of the Winter Help Campaign and announced a " gigantic operation " which would help to defeat Russia. A few days later he was boasting that he had smashed her.
THE SUPREME COMMAND
BRAUCHrTSCH DISMSSED
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour of December 7 most of the world was in the conflict. In announcing his declaration of war on the United States to the Reichstag Hitler abused President Roosevelt and said that America had planned to attack Germany hi 1943. Just before Christmas he dismissed Field-Marshal von Brauchitsch, his Com- mander-in-Chief, and took supreme commard himself. A promise which he had made two months before to capture Moscow had not been fulfilled, and his own troops were retiring before the Red Army. He felt, perhaps, that he had to find a culprit for the failure and also to put heart into his own troops. He spent Christmas at his headquarters in Eastern Europe, not as previously, among his front line troops. Hitler's New Year message for 1942 was far less confident than that of 1941. " Let us all," he said, " pray to God that the year 1942 will bring a decision." There were rumours of disagreement with his generals and of pressure from the radicals within' the Nazi ranks. In March he appointed Bormann to keep the party and the State authorities in close cooperation. He was making strenuous efforts to build up the home front, to increase the number of foreign workers in Germany, and to procure the forces for a spring offensive. In April he received from the obedient Reichstag the title of " Supreme War Lord " and measured the duration of the Reich by the mystical number of a thousand years. The tremendous eastwvard thrust of the summei of 1942 was delivered, reached the Volga, and went deep into the Caucasus. In September he claimed that Germany had vastly extended the living space of the people of Europe and called on his own to do their duty in the fourth winter of the war. On October 1, at the Sportspalast, he taunted, boasted, and prornised the capture of Stalingrad. His effort to make good his word in the end cost Germany a tremendous loss of lives and material. He seemed, however, at this period to be more inclined to talk about the inability of the allies to defeat him than to prophesy a German victory. In November, after the allied land- ings. in North Africa,' his- troops overran un- occupied France and seized Toulon.
A CHASTENED MAN
In the New Year order of the day for 1943 he prophesied that the year would perhaps be difficult but not harder than the one before. He was certainly a much chastened Fiuhrer. The industrial effort of Germany was being seriously disrupted by air attack, and Russia wvas pressing perilously hard. On the tenth anniversary of his acces- sion to power he did not speak, but entrusted Goebbels with a proclamation to read for him. His silence gave rise to rumours, some to the effect that he was giving up his command of the army, others that he was dead. On February 25, instead of speaking, he issued another proclamation to celebrate the birthday of the party. It added fresh fuel to the rumours. On March 21 Hitler at last broke silence. The manner of his speech was lifeless and almost perfunctory. The matter, even for one as prone as he to endless reiteration, was all too familiar. His only news was that he had started to rearrn not in 1936 but in 1933.
MUSSOLINI'S FALL
THE ITALIAN CAPITULATION
Hitler, in his appeal on the anniversary of the Winter Help scheme on May 20, told the German people that the army had faced a crisis during the winter in Russia-a crisis, he said, which would have broken any other army in the world. Soon another crisis faced the Germans. On Jtily 25 Mussolini fell froni power, four days after it had been announced that Hitler and Mussolini had met in northern Italy where it was believed, Mussolini had demanded more help from Germany in the defence of Italy. But Italy was not to be kept at Germany's side, and on September 8 Marshal Badoglio, who had, succeeded Mussolini, announced in a broadcast that his Government had requested an armistice from the allies. Hitler reacted in characteristic manner. He told the; Germans that the collapse of Italy had been foreseen for a long time, not because Italy had not the necessary means of defending herself effec- tively, or because the necessary German support was not forthcoming but rather as a result of the failure or the absence of will of those elements in Italy who, to crown their systematic sabotage, had now brought about the capitulation. Though Hitler was able to claim this foreknowledge of events in Italy, it was clear from his speech, which was direct and effective, that he did not underestimate the [seriousness of his new problem. Hitler seemed still to have the collapse of [Italy in mind when he emerged from jiis head- quarters on November 8 to spend a few hours with, the " Old Comrades " of the National- Socialist Party at Munich. He spoke delibe- rately and forcefully. He was loudly cheered wvhen he declared that the hour of retaliation would come. He said that everything was possible in the war but that he should lose his nerve, and he assured his audience that how- c er long the war lasted Germany would never capitulate. She would not give in at the eleventh hour; she would go on fighting past 12 o'clock. At the beginning of his twelfth year in power-on January 20-Hitler spoke of the danger from Russia. " There will be only one victor in this war, and that will be either Germany or Soviet Russia." In the late afternoon of July 20 it was announced that an attempt had been made on Hitler's life. The attempt was a deep and well- laid plan by a group of generals and officers to end Hitler's regime and the military command. General Beck, who was Chief of the General Staff until November, 1938, when lie was dis- missed, was declared to have been the chief con- spirator. It was added thiat he was " no longer among the living." On August 5 a purge of the Army was announced from Hitler's head- quarters. " At the request of the 'Army," the announcement said, Hitler had set tip a court of honour to inquire into the antecedents of field- marshals and generals and to find out who took part in the attempt on his life. It was dis- closed that several officers had already been executed. Fuyther executions were announced on August 8. In a proclamation issued on November 12 as part of the annual commemoration of the Nazis who fell in the P.tschi of 1923 Hitier declared that Germany was fighting for her life. Throughout the proclaniation therc were references to his own life and to its unimpo.t- ance compared with -the achievement of German aims. ''If, in these days," Hitler said,' " I have but few and rare words for you,- the German people, that is only because I am working unremittingly towards the fulfilment of the tasks imposed upon me, tasks which must be fulfilled if we arc to overcome fate." In the spring the gravity of Germany's crisis became clear. The Russians reached the Oder; the British and Americans crossed the, Rhine. On April 23 Mlarshal Stalin confirmed that the Russians had broken through the defences covering Berlin from the east. The battle for Berlin had begun, and Hiter, the man who brought ruin to so many of Europe's cities, was, according to Hamburg radio, facing the cneney in his own capital, and therc he canie to' his end.
ADOLF hTLER DICTATOR OF GERMANY 12 YEARS OF FORCE AND TYRANNY
'Бій відлунав. Жовто-сині знамена затріпотіли на станції знов'
Re: и ещё... - Chestnut21.03.2012 17:40:31 (33, 28351 b)
