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

HE IS BOTH TERRIBLE AND BANAL 53The following gentlemen performed their test drawings with insufficientsuccess or were not admitted to the test: ... 24. Adolf Hitler,Braunau, a. I. Twentieth of April, 1889. German, Catholic, civil servant,4 Realschulein. Not admitted to the test.In other words, the drawings he had brought were of such a nature thatthe examiners did not regard a test as necessary.This was the second and final rejection. It was such a blow that evenin his own account he could not pass it over in silence. According to hisversion, he went to the director of the Academy and asked the reasonsfor his rejection; the director allegedly told him that his drawingsshowed him to be much better suited for architecture and advised him toapply for admission to the Architectural School. But the road to thisArchitectural School, Hitler goes on to say, was closed to him because itrequired a high-school diploma, and this he did not have.At that time perhaps he felt something akin to consciousness of guilt.He had dodged this diploma, had shunned work, learned nothing, andnot even attempted his final school examination, but had regardedhimself as an artistic genius, far above hard work and sweat. This wasthe same mistaken idea of genius that idlers have always had. And thiswas the punishment. In the judgment of these people, he was no artisticgenius. They consoled him, he says, by telling him that he was gifted forarchitecture — yes, if he had only studied more! And even this story isnot true. Hitler docs not give an honest account of his failure. He couldhave entered Architectural School even without examination anddiploma; the school regulations contained a loophole. There was a casein which examination and diploma could be disregarded: the case of'great talent.' Did he lack confidence in this talent? Or did the professorsfail to recognize it? Probably he did not even make the attempt.At home his mother was dying of cancer of the breast. Five yearsprevious his father had died in the conviction that his son, Adolf, was agood-for-nothing. Now the son was forced to confess to his dyingmother that actually five years full of artistic dreaming and lazyfloundering had led him to the edge of nothingness. On De-