Hitler in Hell

by Martin van Creveld

  As instructive as the Catholic Church was its rival, the workers’ movement. I certainly was no socialist. The Talmudic teachings of Karl Marx, his numerous fellow Jews, and his deluded followers never made any impression on me. So did his idea that history is governed by material factors. A notion that, by eliminating the will, reduces men to the level of amoebae. But coming as I did from a relatively simple family with no property to speak of, I did feel sympathy for the great mass of working people whose lot in life, as I well knew, was often very hard. The more so because I was soon to become one of their number.

  On one occasion I watched, fascinated, an enormous workers’ parade that went on for hours and hours. The participants may have been rough and untutored. Many were also unwashed; how could they not be, given that running water, let alone hot water suitable for use in Vienna’s ice-cold winter, was a luxury very few of them could afford? But the timber of which they were made was sound. If only one could win them back from the turgid mass of “international” ideas their leaders had foisted on them toward their own people, I thought to myself. In that case, any- and everything would be possible.

  Finally, there was Vienna’s great burgomaster, Karl Lueger. At first I thought he and his movement, the Christian Socialists, were merely reactionaries. Later, as I got to understand them better, honesty obliged me to alter my judgment. Such were his achievements in all aspects of municipal life, both economic and cultural, that he almost single-handedly succeeded in reinvigorating the empire. He had the rare gift of insight into human nature, and he was always very careful not to take men as better than they really were. In this he was quite unlike some others, such as the head of the Pan-German Party, Georg von Schönerer. Schönerer’s ideas concerning the need to keep Austria German and to reunite it with Germany were excellent. But he did not have what it takes to lead really large numbers of people.

  Lueger was professedly anti-Semitic. But he saw anti-Semitism as a tool of politics, not as a key issue around which to organize a nation and a state. Whatever he may have said, under his administration Jews did not suffer much. He even permitted himself to have some Jewish friends! His most important insight was very different: namely, that the aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie were politically useless. In their time they had contributed mightily to build the empire along with all the cultural achievements for which it will be forever remembered. By the early twentieth century, though, they were a spent force. Well aware of their decline, the people in question were intent, if on anything at all, only on postponing the inevitable for as long as possible.

  A true mass party, one capable of seizing power and, eventually, shaking the world, could only be built by enlisting the lower middle classes. This includes people such as small shop owners, teachers, low-level civil servants and clerks, and salespeople. It was they, not their social superiors, who had the necessary stamina and were ready to make the sacrifices any great struggle requires. To rally these people behind him, Lueger had to hold the promise of a better life in front of them. Doing so, he was even able to win over the young clergy. So much so, in fact, that their seniors either retired from the field or swallowed their pride and joined him. To all these insights he added his qualities as a superb tactician. He had everything a really great political leader needs to succeed. However, the empire, torn apart by the various nationalities of its inhabitants and too weak to get them under control, was long past saving. That, at any rate, was one point on which Schönerer was right and Lueger wrong.

  In September 1908 I made another attempt to be accepted at the Academy of Fine Arts. This time the idiots in charge did not even allow me to sit for the entrance examinations. Besides, my financial situation was changing for the worse. The appropriately named Stumpergasse—literally, Miserable Bunglers’ Alley—where Kubizek and I shared a room was dingy enough. Now, the money I got from my family started running out, leaving me with less and less to live on. I did not want to share my worries with Kubizek. Kindhearted as he was, he might have embarrassed me by offering me to share some of his own slender resources. How could I, who had always tried to impress him with my various projects, humiliate myself in front of him in such a way? That is why, as he was staying with his parents in Linz during the summer break, I left our room, and the life I could no longer afford, without saying goodbye and without leaving a forwarding address. But I did not forget him. In 1938, at the time of the Anschluss, I asked my people to find him. They had no difficulty in doing so, and we had a brief meeting which brought much joy to both of us.

  My biographers, stumbling over one another, have left no stone unturned in their efforts to find out just how I lived and what I did during this period in my life. Doing so, they dug up all kinds of obscure people who claimed to have known me in one way or another. Some probably did; after all, I did not live in a desert. Others I cannot remember. At times I feel those bloodhounds knew more about me than I did myself. That, of course, is another example of their tendency to make, or at least to try to make, much of nothing. All supposedly in the service of “objective” science! I moved to the Felberstrasse, which was also located near the Westbahnhof and where I was lucky to find a reasonable place to stay. Nearby there was one of those kiosks that sell newspapers and tobacco. I took the opportunity to buy some of the countless little brochures published by all kinds of groups and parties and read them. In August 1909 I moved to even more modest accommodations in the nearby Sechsauserstrasse but stayed there for just one month.

  The next few months were the hardest in my life. The autumn of that year was windy, wet, and cold. At first I tried sleeping in the open. However, I, soon found out that the only way to stay alive was to move from one cheap café to another and to stay there until they threw me out. By Christmas my situation had become really bad. My body was infested with lice, and my clothes, which I had always kept scrupulously clean, were in tatters. I did not actually starve. But hunger, persistent hunger, was definitely my companion.

  Along with a great many others in my situation, I turned to a large house for the homeless in the district of Meidling. At the time every European city had such a place or, in many cases, several such places. It offered soup and bread, a shower, and a bed. So bad were the conditions that I was obliged to sleep with my shoes under my head so as to prevent them from being pinched! Even worse, come morning, the residents were driven into the streets. The doors were locked behind us, and we were left to fend as best we could. Here and there I tried to do manual labor—shoveling snow or carrying luggage for railway passengers—only to find out that, not having an overcoat and haggard as I was, I was not up to it. I also learned that being a simple worker in a harshly competitive capitalist world is no fun.

  It was at this shelter that I met Reinhold Hanisch. Hanisch was a Sudeten German, a vagrant and petty criminal with a police record. He had, however, spent some time in Berlin and could tell me a lot about that city. It was Hanisch who, learning that I could paint, suggested that I start doing so and promised to sell the products. The resulting income was to be shared between us. Hanisch was not the most savory character on earth. Much later, after I had become famous, he started hawking his own paintings, pretending they were mine. For this and other trivial offenses he was jailed several times.

  Before his death, which took place in 1937, he told some journalists that, contrary to what I had written in Mein Kampf, at the time he knew me I had not yet developed into the strong anti-Semite I later became. In fact, he claimed, I actually preferred dealing with Jewish customers because they were more reliable. Of two other people who also sold my paintings, he said, one, Josef Neumann, was himself Jewish. As if one could believe a word a man like Hanisch said; and as if, given my circumstances, I had a choice.

  In February 1910, though, he was still my partner. Having bought the necessary equipment, I started producing a more or less steady stream of views of Vienna. Assisted by the pennies I earned in this way, as well as by a small gift from Hanitante, I moved to a men’s
house in the Meldemannstrasse. The institute, which had only just opened its doors, drew praise from the papers and was considered a model of its kind. For just fifty Heller residents were given their own cubicles to stay overnight. There were also some public facilities for day use: a canteen (where people could prepare their own food), bathrooms, lockers, a laundry, a small library, and the like. The one I liked best was a sort of common room in which some of us social outcasts used to gather, read newspapers, and discuss politics. Even at this low point in my life my main interest was study. That is why, ignoring Hanisch’s protests, I only produced as many works as were needed to keep body and soul together.

  At one point Hanisch tried to cheat me out of some of the money that was my due. I complained to the police, who arrested him. He spent a few days in jail, after which he disappeared. I continued living at the Meldemanstrasse, painting and hoping for better times to come. Life was no longer quite as desperate as it had been in late 1909. But it remained very hard. Much as I tried, naturally, that fact was not without effect on my appearance and behavior. Yet somehow, amidst all the problems, I always kept my head above water. Far from being a threat to the social order, as so many others in my situation became, I was always in danger of being crushed by that very order. That was how things remained until the spring of 1913.

  Given the unsavory nature of Austrian politics, the repugnant mixture of races that infested Vienna, as well as my own unpleasant experiences in that city, I may be forgiven for not liking it very much. That, incidentally, did not prevent the Viennese from giving me a welcome when I returned there in 1938. The cries of “Heil” went on for hours on end until our ears were ringing with them! More to the point, looking back, as I do, from a safe distance, I cannot honestly say that I regret the life I led as a pauper on its streets. In particular, I got to know the common people. People whom most politicians, coming from, and spending their lives in, a much “better” social milieu than I did, never meet and therefore cannot understand. Seen in this light, the experience was invaluable both for Germany and for myself. But for it, I have no doubt that Germany would have turned communist.

  Above all, my life as a down-and-out in Vienna made me hard. Much harder, as I later found out, than most of those who did not go through a similar period could even imagine anyone can be.

  3. Munich

  On the eve of what was later to become known as the Great War, the Hapsburg Empire was clearly tottering. Honeycombed by the numerous different squabbling nationalities and guided, to the extent that it was guided, by a bunch of senile courtiers, it was paralyzed by the democratic system it had recently adopted. As a result, it was incapable of taking decisive action in any direction. For a German nationalist such as myself the atmosphere had become stifling, threatening even. Nor could I see any hope on the horizon. Schönerer’s Pan German Movement was ideologically sound but did not have what it took to attract mass support. The Christian Socialists were better at doing so. But after the death of their great leader, Lueger, in 1910, they lost their way. Instead of taking a firm stance, especially over the all-important Jewish question, they zigged and zagged. As I later learned, in the entire empire there was only one person, Chief of Staff General Conrad von Hötzendorf, who knew what had to be done and was prepared to do it. They did not let him have his way though, and the rest is history.

  The entire question also touched me in a more immediate manner. Like most other countries, Austria-Hungary at the time relied on general conscription to fill the ranks. When it was my time to be called up, I decided, hell no, I wouldn’t go. I did not want to do military service, and perhaps risk my life, solely to promote the cause, which in all probability was a lost one, of the Hapsburgs, their aristocratic flunkeys, and their Jewish supporters. Feeling trapped, I decided to move to the Bavarian capital of Munich.

  On a personal level the decision proved to be among the happiest I ever made. To me, the city immediately felt as if I had known it for ages. To be sure, the district of Schwabing where, for economic reasons, I settled, had its share of “artistic” crackpots. Much of what went on had more to do with filth and pornography—the word, having been recently coined, was everywhere—than with sound, healthy German art. Some called themselves Expressionists, some Cubists. Others formed associations which carried strange names such as such as The Bridge, The Blue Horseman, or whatever. The more absurd, the better. What was one to say of people who painted red trees and green skies? Or tried to reduce everything to cubes? Or spent their time looking for all kinds of degenerates and putting them on show? Or sculpted human torsos without heads and without limbs? Later, I, and the German people acting through me, took the opportunity to say all too clearly what we thought of such “art.” Still Munich, located far from Berlin and competing with it, was a real German city. After the teeming, racially heterogeneous and often bastardized, masses of Vienna, what a relief.

  The weather on the day I arrived in Munich, 25 May 1913, was fine; a good omen for the future. I rented a room in the Schleissheimerstrasse, a relatively poor district in the north. If you want to know the exact house number and floor, ask one of my biographers. Next, I set up as a painter. After all, I still dreamed of becoming an architect. However, given my lack of a proper school certificate, I still could not see a clear way to pursue my ambition. Meanwhile, I painted public buildings just as I had previously done in Vienna. Among them were the Altes Rathaus, the Residenz, the Alter Hof, the Propyläum, and the Hofbräuhaus; briefly, the most important sights of Munich. As I had done in Vienna, I preferred to draw them from postcards rather than from life—a technique often used by other artists too. My work sold well enough to keep soul and body together in a fairly decent manner. No small achievement, as many young budding artists can tell from their own experience.

  I painted about two pictures per week. To be sure, I could have done more if my material needs had been greater than they were and if I had really set my mind to the task. However, an artist—and that is how, throughout my life, I have considered myself—needs time to think, rest, and, yes, idle. The kind of life, in short, that is the opposite of the one my father led. After all, is not schole, leisure, the source of all wisdom? I could name any number of famous artists who had their greatest inspiration not when they were absorbed in their work but at the most unexpected moments. Some were engaged in some other activity, preferably one that does not require thought, such as taking a walk. One of them was Nietzsche, who got his best ideas when walking, on his own, in the mountains of the Engadin. Trust no thought unless it was born in the fresh air, he said! Others were doing nothing in particular when the Muse, coming from God knows where, suddenly lighted on them.

  Besides, I saw my modest art as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. I wanted to continue my education in the fields that interested me most, i.e. history and public affairs. Education, if it is to be worthy of the name and not to result in mere Bildung, takes time and effort. Perhaps even more important, it requires opposition—people who act as a sounding board and who are not ashamed to take up your ideas and to tear them to pieces if they can. Whoever thinks that lectures delivered by a professor, however brilliant, in front of tens of thousands of people, each of whom is sitting in his own private room in front of his own private screen, can provide anything like a real education is deluding himself. And, which is much worse, he deludes his students as well.

  I also went on studying architecture and producing sketches. I often worked so deep into the night that my roommate, one Rudolf Hausler, moved out and rented another room in the same building. I was on friendly terms with my landlord, a tailor by the name of Herr Popp, and had many political discussions with his family and him. But I also frequented coffee houses and beer halls, of which Munich had as many as any other city on earth. There, usually in the kind of modestly priced places I could afford, I talked. I argued. And, yes, when the spirit took me, I harangued. Occasionally, I got very angry at people who did not know what they were talking ab
out or who voiced opinions that betrayed the German national cause. And they got equally angry at me.

  To be sure, being a “beer-hall philosopher,” as Kershaw has disparagingly called me, is not considered exactly the most exalted calling on earth. How many times have such characters not been made fun of by their self-appointed intellectual superiors! But pay heed. Addressing such an audience in such a way as to attract and keep its attention is not exactly easy. The penalty for failure is being thrown out into the streets and hearing the door slammed shut behind you. Let the Herren Professoren, most of whom have never done anything more ambitious than speaking in front of a captive audience of sheepish students in class, try it, if only for five minutes! I am told that, until a few years ago, London’s famous Speakers’ Corner had no shortage of spellbinding speakers who regularly addressed every subject under the sun. Spellbinding they had to be, or else no one would have listened to them. Briefly, it was the much-despised coffee houses and beer halls that first launched me on the road to developing the oratorical skills that later made me world famous. At the time, however, I did not have the slightest idea as to where they would lead me.

  Meanwhile, the Austrian imperial bureaucracy was looking for me. Many people thought of it in terms of österreichische Schlamperei, Austrian sloppiness. In fact, thanks no doubt to legions of self-sacrificing officials like my father, it was one of the most efficient in Europe. The bureaucrats’ tenacity in looking for me, a single insignificant individual, was impressive. First, they went to my relatives in Linz and the Waldviertel and then to the Vienna police. (Like everyone else, when I arrived in the city, I had to register with them.) Then they went to the men’s home at the Meldemannstrasse. Finally, they turned to the Munich police, with whom I had also registered. On 18 January 1914 one of the latter’s officers knocked on the door. Failure to present yourself for military service carried quite a hefty fine whereas leaving the country in order to avoid it might cause one to be imprisoned. No wonder I was shocked.