ABSTRACT
Adolf Hitler had ‘peculiar greatness’ (Fest, 1973, p. 3). Document 1.1 makes it clear enough. In this image drawn from the mid-1920s he tries to strike an authoritative pose. His face is severe, he is almost standing ‘at attention’, he is flanked by uniformed SA men; and yet Hitler is wearing the traditional Bavarian costume of loden jacket and shorts. The impression is, indeed, ‘peculiar’. It challenges us to understand this enigmatic individual. Over the years his figure has evoked rejoicing, hysteria, hope of salvation, not to say revulsion, hatred and downright fear. Appropriately Adolf Hitler was a man of many parts. He established the ideology which underpinned the National Socialist movement. In the beer halls of Munich, he agitated tirelessly on behalf of his particular political message. He became first the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) and then of the whole German nation. Through a process of consistent deceit, he orchestrated the country’s foreign policy. From 1939 onwards he determined ever more closely the nation’s war effort. Through it all, he remained fixated on the idea that he was involved in an artistic undertaking. Adolf Hitler was all of these things: agitator, ideologue, dictator, deceiver, warlord and artist. This brief study takes its chapter structure from the manifold roles he adopted in an existence which, although it often seems to have lasted longer, spanned just 56 years. An additional psychoanalytical chapter explores how his mind worked. Each of these individual themes is clear enough, but even together they may miss the most important feature of his life.
