ABSTRACT
The Apes of God was the first of a long series of tactical errors and personal disasters that oppressed Lewis during the 1930s. On October 9, 1930, after living with Froanna for about ten years, Lewis finally married her in a private ceremony in Paddington. The main reason for the marriage was their desire to travel together to Germany in November 1930 and to Morocco in the spring of 1931, and their fear of difficulties with passports, hotels and ships if they were not joined in wedlock. Lewis first became interested in Hitler while working on The Art of Being Ruled and reading press reports on Germany. Lewis was utterly repelled and absorbed with the grotesque frisson of sexual degeneracy in Berlin im Licht. Lewis showed considerable insight in recognizing the importance of Hitler as early as 1930, when most Englishmen thought he had been politically “snuffed out” by his unsuccessful beer-hall Putsch and subsequent jail sentence.
