In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

EMPLOYEES 85
anonymous underlings, young men with high career hopes (and, therefore,
strong assertions of agency) simply shy away from any role within
the State's bureaucracy.
In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler claims to have rejected at an early age a
career as a civil servant, which his father, a civil servant himself, had
foreseen for him:
For the first time in my life, scarcely eleven, I was forced into opposition.
Firm and unwavering though my father was in carrying out longplanned
goals and projects, his son was equally determined and obstinate
in his refusal to follow those plans. I didn't want to become a civil
servant. Neither encouragement nor "serious" discussions would alter
my resistance in the slightest. I didn't want to become a civil servant,
and said so over and over. All of my father's attempts to inspire me with
a love or desire for this profession turned me in the opposite direction.
To me it seemed boring and awful to be perpetually confined to an
office, unable to do as one pleased and spending one's whole life filling
out forms. (Hitler, 6)
Whoever wants to be a leader must resist being associated with the
facelessness of the State and with that lack of agency which is characteristic
of employees. Instead of embodying the threatening face of society,
he must appear as society's natural savior. [see Action vs. Impotence,
Individuality = Collectivity (Leader)]
Related Entries
Assembly Lines, Mountaineering, Action vs. Impotence, Individuality vs.
Collectivity, Individuality = Collectivity (Leader), Male = Female (Gender
Trouble)
References
Walter Benjamin, Einbahnstrafie. In Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 4, part 1.
Frankfurt, 1972.
Berliner Tageblatt.
Caras y Caretas.
David C. Cassidy, Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg.
New York, 1992.