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

THE UNHAPPIEST OF ALL MEN 377he were to pursue his conclusions, statements, exhortations, andcommands, step by step, back to their sources and grounds. Actually hehas never concealed his contempt of mankind, though always givingthose present to understand that he was not referring to them. But hecannot very well reveal and name the chief source of his contempt forhumanity: his own person. The true source of his belief in humanvileness is self-observation. He is so ashamed of his humanity because,as an historical phenomenon, beguiled by his own star, he expectssuperhuman things of himself. In the contemplation of human affairs, alllogic ultimately leads back to the human individual; a logical analysis ofNational Socialist politics would have to end with an analysis of Hitler'sperson; hence Hitler's unconscious resistance to logic and factual truth.It is not unusual that a man should wish to cut a figure different fromhis real person; all public activity consists in compressing one's ownpersonality into certain qualities and effects, omitting and repressingother aspects of one's nature; to a smaller extent, this phenomenonoccurs even in private relations between man and man, and this line offalsehood in human relations partly accounts for the pessimisticconception of man as a sinner and miscreant. Hitler's special trait is hisconcentration on greatness. This is the source of his power. Whensuddenly this man, who has been awkwardly standing around, now andthen muttering a remark that by no means dominates the conversation, isseized with determination and begins to speak, filling the room with hisvoice, suppressing interruptions or contradictions by his domineeringmanner, spreading cold shivers among those present by the savagery ofhis declarations, lifting every subject of conversation into the light ofhistory, and interpreting it so that even trifles have their origin ingreatness; then the listener is filled with awe and feels that a newphenomenon has entered the room. This thundering demon was notthere before; this is not the same timid man with the contractedshoulders. He is capable of this transformation in a personal interviewand facing an audience of half a million. The rnagic power of this imageof greatness emanating from human nullity gready appealed to theGerman people after the World War, when this people, oppressed bytheir own nullity, longed for