Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

THE UNHAPPIEST OF ALL MEN 357Even while his circumstances remained humble, he had great plans.One of his favorite amusements was designing building projects, mightypaper monuments to his own gigantic figure. At a time when his partywas still sorely in need of money, he went about among rich people,collecting money for an opera house which he wanted to donate to thecity of Munich. One of his early friends and backers was AdmiralSchroder, who in the First World War had led a corps of marinesfighting in Flanders and liked to hear himself called the 'lion ofFlanders.' With Schroder, Hitler planned nothing less than to erect amonument to the Flanders marines in the inland city of Munich. Theseplans for theaters and monuments were among the many fancifuleccentricities from which his friend Hess had to dissuade him withpatient arguments. Hitler knew that his boundless imaginationsometimes prompted him irresistibly to follies, and he expected Hess toprotect him against himself at uncontrolled moments. When the partyproved slow to recover its strength and his political role remainednegligible for years, he had to create a substitute to comfort him with atleast a semblance of greatness. Hitler's whole career was designed accordingto a principle which carried him high and far, which in the mostimpossible and difficult situations sometimes opened up to him escapeswhich ordinary men would not have found; but which sometimes,without a firm brake, might have smashed him to bits. This life principlemay be designated as 'flight into greatness.' Big things are easy. Themasses, with a sound instinct, had sensed this by observing public life;and it was Hitler's decisive realization. Greatness is the way out of thedifficulties, defeats, insignificance of his private life; to be a great manmakes it easier to be a small individual. His gigantic historical figureextended far beyond himself, a monument to the unsolved problems ofhis human existence.Goebbels drew Der Fuhrer's portrait as Hitler wanted to be seen, butindicated between the lines how he really saw him. In 1932, theNational Socialist propaganda chief published a diary, allegedly kept inthe period before his party came to power; in it, he seemingly pours outhis heart, depicting his Fuhrer as a superman: '... He alone was nevermistaken. He was always right... Amazing how great the Fuhrer is in hissimplicity [read: human nonen-