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

HE IS BOTH TERRIBLE AND BANAL 57he must have known, having spent a few months there himself; AdolfHitler stayed on for three years.For three years an unrecognized artist-prince. To Hanisch he confidedthat he was an 'academic painter.' Hanisch found this amazing andwonderful and seems to have believed that in Hitler he had made thegreat find of his life. It had business possibilities: pictures could alwaysbe sold, for small sums, perhaps, but it ran into money if the artistworked quickly and conscientiously. Adolf answered that he was tiredand wretched, and wanted to rest. Hanisch replied with an outburst ofrage: 'Lazybones, aren't you ashamed, etc.?' Yes, he could paintbeautiful pictures, said Hitler, but what good was that? To whom couldhe sell them? He couldn't show himself anywhere as an artist, becausehis clothes were much too shabby. Hanisch explained that it wasn't aquestion of great works of art, but of modest little picture postcardswhich could be peddled in taverns and fairs for a few cents; the secret ofthis business was to work very hard and sell cheap with a big turnover.But for that, Adolf objected, you had to have a permit from the police,and he didn't have one; he would certainly be arrested and put in jail. Hewas looking for difficulties, and Hanisch may well have thought that thefallen artist-prince still had much to learn in the hard school of life. Justpaint your little cards, he said, and let me worry about the rest. Hitlerpainted or rather drew his lifeless, rather dark pen-and-ink copies of theBurgtheater, or the Roman ruins in Schonbrunn Park; and Hanisch, littleworried about permit or police, peddled them around in the taverns.A profound hostility toward work runs through the whole life of thisyoung man. It is a hatred of work arising not from lack of strength, butfrom excess of passion. At great times he was capable of greatexertions; but the idea of having to pay for the air he breathed, the waterhe drank, the bread he ate, the room he lived in, with the constantsacrifice of his own person and abilities, of enslaving himself to labor,deeply wounded his pride. The purchase of life by regular activity —this is basically what Richard Wagner had hated in the societypossessed by the economic ideal; for this hatred and pride he hadforgotten duties, led a vagabond's life, and at last achieved his royaltriumph. Every great creator has once