BOOKS... BY "Caxton" Sydney Professor Looks At Hitler

Northern Advocate, 11 May 1940, Page 11

800K5... BY "Caxton" Sydney Professor Looks At Hitler

The House That Hitler Built, by Stephen - H. Roberts (Methven, new cheaper edition, 6/- net) is definitely an outstanding book. It is almost an encyclopaedia of information about Hitler, the men he cast down, the men he raised up, the Nazi movement and the sources, strength and weakness of the national, colonial and European outlook in Germany today.

The Genesis of a Dictator. Undoubtedly Hitler has seen service, declares our author. Up to the outbreak of war in 1914 he was a spoiled, undisciplined, untrained son of a doting mother. He had drifted from one place to another in a succession of failures to hold down a job. “He despised physical labour and his workman associates. They did not understand him. His mind was different. He dreamed patriotic dreams. Their rough sports and reckless indulgence did not .appeal to him. His emotional and sensitive aspirations for Germany did not move them. Laughed at by his comrades for poring over an atlas, he fixed them with a glassy stare and replied with crushing dignity: “I am wiping out the German boundaries and making them larger—making them larger!” This was the man of 25 who in 1914 welcomed the War .as a personal salvation, the outlet in action for years of frustrated visions. “I sank down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart.” Immediately he joined up in Colonel List's regiment of Bavarian reserves. “In the next four years he fought in 48 battles. He was awarded the Military Cross, was decorated with tire black wound-badge, and received the Iron Cross for bravery in 1918.” But- he was not popular. He was different. “An emotional idealist has no place in the lousy, scrounging life of the trenches, and, after all, good fellowship is of far more importance than heroes.” His abstinence from the usual rounds of indulgence offended his fellow soldiers. Nor was he liked by his officers. Hence he came out of the war with a confirmed hatred of the Jews, and a good deal of contempt for the workers and comrades who had despised him. But a patriot still, true to his vision, “who remained a lance-corporal after four years of war in which promotion came to most men.” Gassed at Montagne in October. 1918, he regained consciousness in a far away hospital on the 21st. Two days before the Armistice, recuperating in the mountain camp of Traunstein he resolved to become a politician. The dreamer still, a Wagnerian Seigfried, a knight of the new Germany that mystically haunts his

mind and fires his passion, he goes cut, not into dim dark forests to slay dragons, but into the streets and assemblies of men .as an Agitator. He sees himself as a Crusader. His speeches are woven out of his dreams.. And because his dreams are a real part of his life the speeches ring true to his listeners. With their German world crumbling to bits and their national future hopelessly chaotic, Hitler’s voice is the dawn of a new hope. He was one of many bidders for leadership. There were otherparties and other leaders more able as thinkers, more experienced as statesmen, but not so adept in understanding and using the moods of the people, and lacking Hitler's power of passionate and prophetic appeal for a reborn Germany. On this was laid the foundation of his Dictatorship. (To be Continued Saturday Next)