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

THE UNHAPPIEST OF ALL MEN 379can be seen from his report, was filled with enthusiasm by Hitler; but asa physician he is doubtless right. Mental unreliability is not a disease;Brinsteiner attempted to analyze this mentality, driven back and forth byhis own emotions and the reaction of public opinion, and came closestto the truth: 'This way of thinking and acting, partly aroused bysuggestion and auto-suggestion, cannot always stand up againstsubsequent unprejudiced criticism, but it is not for that reasonnecessarily pathological.'Yet whatever the mental state, the emotional abnormality of thisnature darting restlessly back and forth between somnolence and frenzycannot be overlooked. No normal man strives for world domination; anda normal man would hardly lead Adolf Hitler's private life. Capable ofgreat physical and mental exertions, he is almost pathologicallydisinclined to regular work; a magician does not work, and greatness isnot achieved by ordered activity. Perhaps it is basically hisdisinclination for regular activity that makes him sleepless. He isnocturnal in his habits; when possible, he forces his staff to confer withhim at night, and it is at night that he prefers to make his decisions. Onenight Goebbels arrived in Berlin dead tired after two days of work and ajourney by plane. 'At two in the morning,' the propaganda chief writes,'he was still sitting fresh as a daisy in the midst of his work, alone at hishome; he made me lecture him for almost two hours about the constructionof the Reich super-highway'; strange work which was suddenlyinterrupted by two hours of chatting — for a lecture on this subject byGoebbels, who was certainly no specialist, cannot be regarded asanything more. 'Every night till six or seven in the morning, you couldsee the light shining from his windows. Der Fuhrer was dictating hisgreat speeches . . .' again a report by Goebbels, this time referring to avisit in Berchtesgaden.Later, when Goebbels administered the German film industry, heforced actresses to sign contracts agreeing to keep Hitler companyoccasionally at night; under perfectly respectable circumstances, to besure, at the big all-night parties which he often gave. Goebbels also didreal pandering if it could procure or reinforce Der Fuhrer's favor; and allthe while he informed the world how frugally Der Fuhrer lived —shunning drink, tobacco, meat, pomp, and festiv-