WEEPS AND RAGES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 5, 7 January 1944, Page 3

WEEPS AND RAGES

A CHANGED HITLER

Extraordinary inner changes in Hitler are reported by travellers from Germany who have had opportunity to-study him under war conditions, states a London cable to the "Sun,' Sydney. ' ~ , . i -The best picture is supplied by a Kumanian who met him four times this year, the last time only a month ago. -":"Before the war he was half-mystic and half-brutal opportunist," he says.l has faded, and with his growing personal solitariness he is becoming other-worldly. He sleeps badly and still rises late—rarely before 10.30 or 11 a.m. '"He insists on being alone lor at least an hour a day, when no one in any circumstances must disturb him. His habits are even simpler than three years ago. He has occasional parties iof male guests at Berchtesgaden (Bavaria), giving them only French wines, for which he has developed a strong liking. "His moodiness has increased and his taste for solitude has intensified. "One of his aides told me that violent j rages are often followed by fits of weeping and talk of 'needless bloodshed.' ■■.-' "These outbursts are hushed up by his staff. '.'He has not been in Berlin since the big bombings began. He never had many intimates, and today he has none. • "Ribbentrop (Foreign Minister) was probably closer to Hitler than anyone, but he, too, has lost face because of- his conviction that Britain and Russia could never work together. "At his H.Q. he still sees all frontline reports and attends all High Command meetings, but he no longer tries to 'overrule majority decisions of his generals." . A report that Franz von Papen (German Ambassador to Turkey) has been talking freely about Hitler's downfall and naming himself as his successor is published in "Collier's Magazine" by, Frank Gervasi, its Mid-East correspondent. Papen is credited, with hawking a peace plan which would restore all stolen lands except the Sudetenland and Austria.