HITLER 20 YEARS AGO

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 81, 30 December 1940, Page 4

HITLER 20 YEARS AGO

Impressions Of Sir Hugh Walpole UNKEMPT, VERY FEMININE, VERY EXCITABLE Hid lever know Adolf Hitler? Oddly enough 1 think that 1 did better than 1 know some of my real trien'ds, writes Sir Hugh Walpole, in -John O’Londou’s Weekly.” It was in the early 'twenties during two successive summor.s in Bayreuth. 1 stayed there for more limn two months, summer after summer, Will) Lauritz Melchior, who was at that time singing the leading tenor roles in the Wagner operas.

1 was also a friend of Winnie Wagner. wife of Siegfried Wagner’s only son' Many strange stories there are about that odd adventurer, but tlie only thing that matters here is that Adolf Hitler, fresh from his Munich prison, passed some time in Bayreuth. He was. and is. a great friend of Fran Wagner, and lie had, and lie has, a passion for Wagner's music. 1 sat in a box with him on the occasion wjien Melehior made his debut in ’T’arsifal.” I have never since heard him sing as he did that day. The tears poured down Hitler’s cheeks. During the second of these summers I was with Hitler on many occasions, talked, walked, and ale with him. _ I think lie rather liked me. I liked him ami despised him, both emotions which time Ims proved 1 was wrong to indulge. 1 liked him because lie seemed ro me a poor fish quite certain to be killed shortly.

' He was shabby, unkempt, very feminine. very excitable. lie resembled, 1 thought then, mediums I had seen nt Conan Doyle’s tint. There was sometiling pathetic about him. 1 felt. I felt rather-maternal to him.! He spoke a great deal about his admiration of England, and the need of her alliance witii Germany. I thought him fearfully ill-educated and quite tenth-rate. When Winnie Wagner said lie would lie tlie saviour of tlie world I lust laughed. I was wrong about one thing—his evil. I didn’t detect it then. 1 thought him silly, brave, and shabby—rather like a necromantic stump orator. I didn’t realize at all his one supreme gift, the gift that has brought him and his country where they are today—his gift for knowing instinctively the “spot" m anv man’s character to attack —tlie weak spot, the spot that is ungenerous, greedy, mean, traitorous, lecherous, and. above all, cowardly.

’ Oil, yes, lie is a remarkable man all right I He is among the evil, slinking, betraying Bagmen of history. Why di'dn’t I put poison into iris coffee in Wahnl’ried ?