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_MEMORANDUM_


TO:    Professor Crane Brinton

FROM:  Edward Deuss

SUBJECT:                    Recollections of Adolf Hitler
                    Gained from personal contact, interviews
                    and on airplane campaign tours with Hitler
                            from September 1931 - May 1933.

The most obvious thing about Hitler is the blend of inborn 
feminine and masculine characteristics - a man on the 
borderline of woman, an incredible iron will subject to 
unfathomable fits of depression, a Spartan self-disciplinarian 
who would not kill a fly except in a rage, a mystic-realist, 
an intuitive warrior, an ascetic adventurer.

I once asked him what he considered he most revealing 
statement about himself in "Mein Kampf." He replied,  "A 
short sentence at the very beginning of the book (on page 
11 in fact) in which I say that as a youth I learned the 
meaning of history." And the most important factor in 
his early upbringing, he maintained, was Roman Catholicism, 
combined with the teachings of his intensely German-nationalist 
history teacher. He sees the world as a clash of opposing forces, 
and genius in man as the power to synthesize these opposing 
forces for the purpose of evolving a third and more powerful 
force. His personality is a synthesis of Austria and Prussia, 
of Marxian materialism and metaphysics. National Socialism, 
he was always proud of describing as a synthesis of 
Nationalism and Socialism. His appeal to the German people 
based on this synthesis.

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A monocled Prussian Junker general stumping Weimar Germany 
on behalf of Pan-German expansionism would have been 
regarded as a joke. But the Austrian corporal aroused no such 
misgivings.

The meaning of history, for him, consisted of deductions 
from an analysis of that age-old enticing problem -- the 
rise and decline of civilization. His faith in himself and 
his hope for Germany rested on the conviction that the 
great imperialist powers were subjected to a cyclical 
decline which presented Germany with an opportunity. 
His job was to build up a strong united Germany to claim 
the heritage of the empires at the moment of their greatest 
weakness. He has always made much of the fact that when 
the "world was divided" last time in the 17th, 18th and 19th 
centuries Germany was compelled to look on helplessly 
because torn by internal strife. He does not subscribe to 
Carlyle's view that personalities make history; he believes 
that personalities appearing on the scene at opportune 
moments can share the destiny of their countries. Leaders 
may be motivated by purely materialistic considerations but 
the lasses of the people will fight only when moved by 
idealistic impulses. These idealisms have in the majority of 
cases been manufactured by those seeking or holding power 
for an express purpose, but those who seek have a chance of 
success only with a new religion, while those who struggle 
to hold must rely on the old-ineffectual refurbished.

In this sense, he recognized that the only serious contender 
for power in Europe was the new idealism of Bolshevism. 
The new German idealism on which German military might 
was to be based had to exert an appeal equal to if not stronger 
than Bolshevism.

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Having thus diagnosed the world situation, he was guided by 
his intuition. how his mind worked before put to the supreme 
test of thinking quickly in tight situations is shown by a 
conversation I had with him in October, 1932, on the airdrome 
at hamburg. I asked him whether he had found any other, 
possibly more convincing reasons, for considering France 
decadent, than those outlines in "Mein Kampf." He looked at 
me rather quizzically as if he were being subjected to a leg-pull. 
When apparently reassured, he replied: "Yes, the Maginot line." 
He paused to smile at my bewilderment and continued, 
"Whenever a people is so afraid to fight the barbarians 
(I interjected: "You mean the barbarians"? He replied, "Yes, 
I mean the barbarians.") that it builds a wall around itself 
to keep them out -- that nation is decadent. Look at the 
Roman lines in Southwest Germany, look at the great wall 
of China. These construction feats both marked the beginning 
of the downfall of great empires." In those far off days, he 
not only confessed his intention to smash France but he felt 
confident that France would fall without a fight, an opinion 
which he probably held until the Reynaud government came 
to power.

It is true that his analysis of the European situation in 1932 
(and he made not the slightest effort at concealment) makes 
his conduct of the war more inexplicable. Having diagnosed the 
West as decadent and knowing that there would be little 
opposition to his assuming the role of crusader to slay the 
monster of Bolshevism, his obvious intention was to strike 
eastwards in the spring of the year, overrun Poland and then 
strike at Russia, confident that France and Britain would not 
bother him with a two-front war. I am sure that such was his 
intention. Why he failed to carry


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it out is difficult to tell.

Self-Discipline.

Hitler is fully conscious of his lowly origin, his lack of formal 
education, his shyness, his unsocialability. After the last  war, 
he literally manufactured himself into another man by sheer 
will power. He convinced himself that Germany had a future 
and that he could make himself the savior of his country. By 
"re-magnetising his heart" and "getting religion" he made 
himself into a public speaker because he felt that the spoken 
word was much more potent than the written. Handicaps which 
he could not overcome were bent to his advantage: Not being a 
hail fellow well-met, he molded himself into what passes for a 
strong, silent mystical character. He always 
blushed when select groups of Nazi mothers pushed their 
little boys and girls at him with bouquets on the airdomes. 
I never once saw him pat the bearers of these tokens on the 
head, ask their age or whether they went to school. He took 
the bouquets, usually wild or garden flowers, in his left hand, 
gave a limp salute with his right, and handed the flowers to 
the chief of his bodyguard, Schaub. who carried two revolvers 
under his raincoat.

His infinitely greater appeal to women than men was 
everywhere noticeable. Groups of women of all ages 
used to form flocks of guardian angels who watched 
over him all night in the lobbies of hotels while he slept 
somewhere above. In Flensburg in the summer of 1932 
three flaxen-haired blue-eyed daughters of the three 
Nazi district leaders came to Brueckner,

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the adjutant and chauffeur, begging for the chance of 
[unreadable] Fuehrer in the eye." The Fuehrer consented 
and the [unreadable] were ushered into Hitler's hotel room, 
and [unreadable] as soldiers, de-filed just inside the room 
and [unreadable] Hitler. Hitler advanced from the other end 
of the room [unreadable] in front of the squad, clicked his 
heels and saluted. Then there was an awkward, rather 
embarrassing pause (the procedure [unreadable]  Fuehrer 
in the eye) lasting about half a minute. Hitler [unreadable] 
strode back to his desk. The girls saluted, cried "Heil Hitler!" 
and then [unreadable] out of the room. Just outside they 
leaped up, threw their arms abound Brueckner's neck 
(he was six feet four) and kissed [unreadable]. Their lips 
were moist, in fact they were almost frothing [unreadable] 
completely hysterical with joy. Inside the room [unreadable] 
than Heil Hitler had been spoken. They did literally 
[unreadable] the bashful Fuehrer in the eye and yet, 
as they said over and over again the moment would 
remain the greatest of their lives. [Unreadable] still are 
believed also to run deep. Brueckner's comment [unreadable] 
to me was "The old man did that very well, don't you think?"

Hitler without a doubt molded himself into the leader [unreadable] 
would carry the people with him. And in the process [unreadable] 
all distractions. he always went about as if wrapped [unreadable] 
spoke little even to his bosom pals. A tip which [unreadable] 
from Schaub before the first airplane tour. He advised me 
never to ask the Fuehrer more than one or two questions at 
a time and never [unreadable] him unless time seemed heavy 
on his hands. [unreadable]

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