HITLER’S MOUNTAIN RETREAT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 118, 22 May 1939, Page 3

HITLER’S MOUNTAIN RETREAT

New Home in Bavarian Alps for Former “Spoiled Child”

\ DOLF HITLER. Fuhrer of the German people. Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces, and Chancellor of the Third Reich, last month celebrated his 50th birthday, and it has been decreed that the day, April 20. shall forever after be a National holiday. The son of a minor Austrian Customs official, this sturdily-built, stocky man of 50. with the small moustache, occupies to-day. not only the chair of Bismarck, but also, in effect, the throne of the Hohenzollerns. In a few years he has established a totalitarian third Reich in which the individual, body and soul, is subjected to the State, which is the Fuhrer himself. He has broken al! resistance, with the exception of two religious bodies—the Confessional Church, in which the Protestant opposition is organised, and the Roman Catholic Church. The struggle now going on between the totalitarian State and these two churches is the eternal conflict

expressed in the words ■'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” There are still some Germans who refuse to deliver their souls to Hitler. The moody and brooding Fuhrer of the Germans, who now holds the world in fear, has been reticent about his origins. From his very name downwards, much of his private history is vague and uncertain. In “Mein Kampf,” Hitler paints the simplest possible picture of his family—father, mother, son. It seems that he was raised as the spoiled child of a doting mother. Psycho-analysts have endeavoured to trace from this relationship much that is significant in the Fuhrer’s personality to-day. There is a state known to psychology as infantile regression. This does not mean that the intellect has suffered, but that impulse and reaction—the sou] of the adult—have remained childlike and barbaric, or relapsed into the childhood stage. This is the phenomenon which the psychologists see in Nazi Germany, as in the Fuhrer himself. Hitler grew up half-educated, untrained for any trade or profession, and

’ seemingly doomed to failure. His I schooling ceased at 13. and his mother’s I death flung him out into an inhospit- ; able world. Five years of extreme • poverty and hardship he spent in Vienna i sometimes out of work, sometimes as i a casual labourer. These years of ’ privation in cheap lodgings and unpleasant doss-houses were important . for the future of Europe, for during ! this period he developed the hatred of Jews and Social Democrats which has : been a feature of National Socialist ! policy. Munich became his home in 1912, and his political career began there in 1919. , when he became member No. 7 of the then midget German Labour Party, of seven members. Discovering his power of oratory, Hitler soon became the party’s leader, changed its name to the National Socialist Germany Workers’ j Party, and wrote its anti-Semitic, antidemocratic, and authoritarian pro- | gramme. From this time his story is

that of the rise of the Nazi Party, and the resurgence of Germany. Hitler appears to have possessed from very early years a mystic sense of a mission to be performed. A companion of his childhood has told how the children in the village called Adolf “daft.” because of a strange habit he had. He used to “preach” without seeming to require an audience. He was fond. too. of climbing a hill near the village, called the “Fiddle.” There, he used to speak to a non-existing meeting. This happened not only in the daytime, but also on moonlight nights. So people in the village began to say that Adolf was moonstruck. It is probably as the supreme demagogue of his day that Hitler has risen to power. He made a careful study of the psychology of audiences, and he has always contended that a speaker must be judged solely by the effect | he produces on the people, and not by the matter of his speeches. He stands unselfconscious and commanding before his audience. He has natural gestures and a pleasant voice, clear and easy to follow. It is said that he possesses no fewer than 15 special desks,

; one of which is always at hand when j he is making a speech. They are fitted I with signals indicating when the S.A. and S.S. men are to lead an outburst I of “Hells,” when the spotlight is to play, and so on. The Fuhrer’s hero in history is Frederick the Great, or, at any rate, that monarch’s military prowess and autocratic rule rather than his love of French culture and hatred of Prussian boorishness. Portraits and busts of Frederick adorn the chalet at Berchtesgaden, and echoes of his political maxims are heard in “Mein Kampf.” It was Frederick the Great who said: "When Prussia shall have made her fortune, it will ■be time enough to give herself the air of fidelity to her engagements.” For the celebration of his birthday, the Fuhrer was the host at a big dinner party at the new' Reich Chancellery, his headquarters in Berlin. This magnificent building was designed by the 33-year-old Albert Speer, Hitler’s I favourite architect, designer of many i Nazi buildings, and co-architect with j Hitler himself of the project to rebuild Berlin. Designed to be a monument to its Nazi builders, it is 1400 ft. long and three stories high. It houses some 400 administrative offices of the Nazi bureaucracy, and a central section contains the Fuhrer’s office and the vast Long Hall. Elsewhere, there are his private quarters, official reception galleries, a huge library, and a room filled with models of buildings planned for the beautification of Berlin. Signor Mussolini's famous office in the Palazzo Venezia measures 60ft. by 40ft. The Fuhrer’s office in the new Chancellery measures 88ft. by 42ft. For meditation and discussion on his plans, Herr Hitler, retires to his mountain chalet at Berchtesgaden, in the Bavarian Alps. Recently, however, he has built a more inaccessible retreat, the Alderhorst —the Eagle's Nest—perched on the pinnacle of Kchlstein Mountain. Not far from the Berghof—the Berchtesgaden Chalet—the road begins a winding ascent of five miles up a steep mountain. At the end of the road two big bronze doors arc built in the mountain side. The doors open by electricity, and the visitor enters a 350 ft. long marble-walled underground chamber, brilliantly lighted by bronze lamps. From this chamber an elevator. with 10 comfortable leather scats, ascends a shaft bored through the mountain for 400 ft. At the top is the eyrie of the German Fuhrer. The house is comparatively small, and apparently consists mainly of one large circular room, lined except near the fireplace, with large windows. There are also a guard-room, an electrically-operated kitchen, and a balcony look-out. Three thousand workmen laboured for months to dig the road, bore the tunnel and shaft, and build the house cn the mountain top. It is said that Herr Hitler has built this eyrie as a mausoleum. Another story is that he is planning to write there a sequel to "Mein Kampf”—which will be a new German philosophy. Whatever the truth, there is no doubt that the Fuhrer has built himself a magnificent and unique retreat 6000 ft. above sea level, commanding superb views of Bavaria and old Austria. The winds howl round it continually, it is said, and white clouds float by. “Solitude is dangerous to reason,” said Samuel Johnson, “without being favourable to virtue. Remember that i the solitary mortal is certainly luxur- | ious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad.”