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

378 DER FUEHRERgreatness; but a far deeper and more decisive explanation of Hitler'seffect is the soul state of modern man, who, in his pettiness, loneliness,and lack of faith, longs for community, conviction, and greatness. Herehe sees greatness emerging from a creature who as a man is smaller thanyou or I — that is what made Hitler an experience for millions.This sharp division of his personality — colorless on the one hand,dazzling on the other — does not mean, however, that two men dwell inone. Hitler is no split personality; the two sides of his nature belongentirely together and condition one another, like the two weights of acentrifugal top. This contrast between greatness and nonentity, as itpresents itself in Hitler, is the product of education and growth througha life almost unique in the whole of history; anyone who tries to judgeHitler solely on the basis of mad or inadequate utterances and actions offormer times forgets that power in itself is instructive and that only thedullest of minds fail to learn from the possession of responsibility andinfluence. With the years the two poles of his personality became purerand more pronounced. His nature was sensitive, quick to react; now itwould rush to one side, now to the other, thus creating an impression ofgreat instability and adaptability. Perhaps the medical man will discoverhysterical symptoms in this; at all events, the layman, including thepresent author, will speak readily of hysteria; for the sake of clarity itshould be stated that the fixation of this hysteria is on the contradictionbetween greatness and nonentity. Max von Gruber, the specialist,observing him in the course of a passionate action lasting several hours,found the facial expression of the man 'madly agitated,' and, at the end,the characteristic 'expression of gratified self-esteem.' Anotherspecialist, though not of the first rank, who observed him systematicallyover a considerable period, categorically denied any pathologicaltendency. This was Doctor Brinsteiner, a prison physician who saw himin Landsberg in 1924; he was 'firmly convinced that Hitler was alwaysmaster of himself and his will and not pathologically affected in hismental activity.' Brinsteiner did observe a 'passing pathologicaldepression which appeared in Hitler for a short time after the putsch,'but drew from it 'no inference of a pathological tendency in Hitler.'Brinsteiner, as