Hitler's Library

Chapter 2: Books That Hitler Read: Penciled Notes Attest

Books That Hitler Read: Penciled Notes Attest Chapter 2 Books That Hitler Read: Penciled Notes Attest Let us examine how and to what the penciled notes attest. There is obviously a question as to whether it was always Hitler who wrote into these books. However, our impressions and experiences indicate that both the fine graphite pencil lines and the rough blue or red underlinings originate from his hand. In any case, who would have dared to defile his books apart from the authors themselves who might have wished to draw his attention to something in this way? True enough, there are some books, as we understand it, that he obtained second hand in his youth, and his handwriting is also hard to recognize, since, whether calligraphic or scrawled, it is as plain as his face—the plain, empty face to which he could partly thank his political career, according to Jünger’s aforementioned view. Reflections on Ernst Jünger’s “Magic Realism” Perhaps the veteran writer from the trenches was taken in by Hitler’s medium-like lack of personality when he characterized the Hitler cult. He sought a central figure for his nationalism, and recognized it in Hitler, to whom he dedicated his book in 1926 with the simple words “To the national Leader”—an act which he was later taken to task for on numerous occasions. Jünger’s work Fire and Blood is perhaps the best piece in the Hitler Library.1 This small volume is a confession about the war, and is a diagnosis of the human killing machine. It is a frightening product of his oft-mentioned “magical realism.” It does not agonize over or 14 Hitler’s Library self-indulgently re-live memories, but prepares for the future; it is the flowering of the “modern nationalism” of 1919: “The men for whom I write know that it is not about past but about future things.” Hitler seemed to have at most only leafed through the several dozen war books dedicated to him, but he argued with the contents of this one. He put a question mark in the margin beside the following paragraph: Battle is a frightening measure of the opponents’ production, and victory is the success of the business rival who was able to produce more cheaply, more purposefully and faster. [Hitler’s question mark in pencil in the margin] It is in this that the era from which we come reveals its other face. The reign of machines over humans, and of servants over lords, together with a deeper contradiction that had already begun to shake the economic and social orders during peacetime, is breaking through murderously in the battles of the current era. It is here that the style of a materialist generation reveals itself, and technology celebrates a bloody victory. (25) It seems likely that the Führer would not have approved of this passage because in laying claim to what he announced as the one single redeeming worldview he had proclaimed the reign of humans over technology. I doubt that he agreed with the following train of thought either, but here he only drew a line along the margin: “We come from an era in which post offices were built like Romanesque palaces, railway stations like Gothic castles, and power stations like small urban mansions; an era in which new forms are hidden behind old facades, and in which spiritually we have yet to mature to the extent of our technical development. If only this iron-interlude [that is, battle] would serve us in our coming to terms with ourselves.” (41) Hitler could also have taken ideas from here. At the height of his power, in a long speech he gave about art on the Nazi Party Day, he disapproved of historicizing styles, and dismissed so-called Teutomania in general. He even expressed himself in the following way when he bid his final farewell to Hindenburg, who was lying in state in a historicizing type of memorial in Tannenberg: “Now leave for Valhalla!"2 This was a symptom of the psychopathology of everyday life, since it also meant that he wanted to be completely rid of everything to do with Hindenburg, even his shadow. He must have quickly realized that what he said was sacrilegious and distasteful, and the historicizing environment of the monumental memorial must have Books That Hitler Read: Penciled Notes Attest 15 oppressed...