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

HE IS BOTH TERRIBLE AND BANAL 67founded, he told Hanisch, and the organization would have to be copiedfrom the Social Democrats; but the best slogans should be taken fromall parties, for the end justifies the means. Adolf Hitler saw withadmiration how an unscrupulous intelligence can play with the masses,for him this was true of the Austrian Social Democrats as well as theiropponent, Karl Lueger.Adolf Hitler was born to regard men as base matter for the strong anddexterous hands of — to quote Nietzsche again — 'power philosophers,and artist tyrants.' From his father and grandfather he inherited a gypsyliketrait of disloyalty and human coldness; also a tendency toward slycalculation which did not shrink back from humiliation. In his struggleagainst his father, he discovered with a sure instinct the truth suited tohis own nature, that no holds were barred, and that the end justifies allmeans; in the school which leaves the most lasting impression — that is,his own family — he learned that the right of the stronger prevails,contested at most by the right of the craftier. Having achieved thisgloomy wisdom, he was hurled into the abyss where broken, uprootedmen develop the worst qualities of the wolf and the fox; into a masscommunity of unhappy souls, the best of whom long passionately to getout of this community into the old life which formerly divided them sofar from one another. A class consciousness of pathological intensitywas the only thing that kept many of these declassed individuals —whether former counts or former workers — afloat. From this abysseach one looked up to his own stars; the lack of solidarity is the greatcharacteristic of this class in which the fallen artist-prince unexpectedlyfound himself. He had a sharp eye for this lack of loyalty in the class ofthe declassed; it jibed with his previous idea of the human species. Hehad pitilessly discerned the faults of the working class. But the greatvirtue of the worker type, proletarian solidarity, he had not understood;he had only been insulted when it reached out to him. In his narrative,which is not above suspicion, he tells us that the building workerswanted to force him into a union; he had sharply refused, and this hadbeen the beginning of hostility. To be sure, there is ground for suspicionthat Hitler copied this whole fine story with small changes from theautobiography of his later political friend, Anton Drexler, MeinPolitisches Erwachcn