a haircut. “Too flashy,” Speer said now. “Sideburns are the kind of thing I’d associate with Churchill.” Hitler became incensed. Was Churchill contemplating sideburns, he wanted to know, and if so, how many and when? Himmler, supposedly in charge of Intelligence, was summoned immediately. Goring was annoyed by Speer’s attitude and whispered to him, “Why are you making waves, eh? If he wants sideburns, let him have sideburns.” Speer, usually tactful to a fault, called Goring a hypocrite and “an order of bean curd in a German uniform.” Goring swore he would get even, and it was rumored later that he had special S.S. guards french Speer’s bed.
Himmler arrived in a frenzy. He had been in the midst of a tap-dancing lesson when the phone rang, summoning him to Berchtesgaden. He was afraid it was about a misplaced carload of several thousand cone-shaped party hats that had been promised Rommel for his winter offensive. (Himmler was not accustomed to being invited to dinner at Berchtesgaden, because his eyesight was poor and Hitler could not bear to watch him bring the fork up to his face and then stick the food somewhere on his cheek.) Himmler knew something was wrong, because Hitler was calling him “Shorty,” which he only did when annoyed. Suddenly the Fuhrer turned on him, shouting, “Is Churchill going to grow sideburns?”
Himmler turned red.
“Well?”
Himmler said there had been word that Churchill contemplated sideburns but it was all unofficial. As to size and number, he explained, there would probably be two, of a medium length, but no one wanted to say before they could be sure. Hitler screamed and banged his fist on the table. (This was a triumph for Goring over Speer.) Hitler pulled out a map and showed us how he meant to cut off England’s supply of hot towels. By blockading the Dardanelles, Doenitz could keep the towels from being brought ashore and laid across anxiously awaiting British faces. But the basic question remained: Could Hitler beat Churchill to sideburns? Himmler said Churchill had a head start and that it might be impossible to catch him. Goring, that vacuous optimist, said the Fuhrer could probably grow sideburns quicker, particularly if we marshalled all of Germany’s might in a concentrated effort. Von Rundstedt, at a meeting of the General Staff, said it was a mistake to try to grow sideburns on two fronts at once and advised that it would be wiser to concentrate all efforts on one good sideburn. Hitler said he could do it on both cheeks simultaneously. Rommel agreed with von Rundstedt. “They will never come out even,
After the Allied invasion, Hitler developed dry, unruly hair. This was due in part to the Allies’ success and in part to the advice of Goebbels, who told him to wash it every day. When General Guderian heard this, he immediately returned home from the Russian front and told the Fuhrer he must shampoo his hair no more than three times weekly. This was the procedure followed with great success by the General Staff in two previous wars. Hitler once again overruled his generals and continued washing daily. Bormann helped Hitler with the rinsing and always seemed to be there with a comb. Eventually, Hitler became dependent on Bormann, and before he looked in a mirror he would always have Bormann look in it first. As the Allied armies pushed east, Hitler’s hair grew worse. Dry and unkempt, he often raged for hours about how he would get a nice haircut and a shave when Germany won the war, and maybe even a shine. I realize now he never had any intention of doing those things.
One day, Hess took the Fuhrer’s bottle of Vitalis and set out in a plane for England. The German high command was furious. They felt Hess planned to give it to the Allies in return for amnesty for himself. Hitler was particularly enraged when he heard the news, as he had just stepped out of the shower and was about to do his hair. (Hess later explained at Nuremberg that his plan was to give Churchill a scalp treatment in
Late in 1944, Goring grew a mustache, causing talk that he was soon to replace Hitler. Hitler was furious and accused Goring of disloyalty. “There must be only one mustache among the leaders of the Reich, and it shall be mine!” he cried. Goring argued that two mustaches might give the German people a greater sense of hope about the war, which was going poorly, but Hitler thought not. Then, in January of 1945, a plot by several generals to shave Hitler’s mustache in his sleep and proclaim Doenitz the new leader failed when von Stauffenberg, in the darkness of Hitler’s bedroom, shaved off one of the Fuhrer’s eyebrows instead. A state of emergency was proclaimed, and suddenly Goebbels appeared at my shop. “An attempt was just made on the Fuhrer’s mustache; but it was unsuccessful,” he said, trembling. Goebbels arranged for me to go on radio and address the German people, which I did, with a minimum of notes. “The Fuhrer is all right,” I assured them. “He still has his mustache. Repeat. The Fuhrer still has his mustache. A plot to shave it has failed.”
Near the end, I came to Hitler’s bunker. The Allied armies were closing in on Berlin, and Hitler felt that if the Russians got there first he would need a full haircut but if the Americans did he could get by with a light trim. Everyone quarrelled. In the midst of all this, Bormann wanted a shave, and I promised him I would get to work on some blueprints. Hitler grew morose and remote. He talked of parting his hair from ear to ear and then claimed that the development of the electric razor would turn the war for Germany. “We will be able to shave in seconds, eh, Schmeed?” he muttered. He mentioned other wild schemes and said that someday he would have his hair not just cut but shaped. Obsessed as usual by sheer size, he vowed he would eventually have a huge pompadour-“one that will make the world tremble and will require an honor guard to comb.” Finally, we shook hands and I gave him a last trim. He tipped me one pfennig. “I wish it could be more,” he said, “but ever since the Allies have overrun Europe I’ve been a little short.”
My Philosophy
The development of my philosophy came about as follows: My wife, inviting me to sample her very first souffle, accidentally dropped a spoonful of it on my foot, fracturing several small bones. Doctors were called in, X-rays taken and examined, and I was ordered to bed for a month. During this convalescence, I turned to the works of some of Western society’s most formidable thinkers-a stack of books I had laid aside for just such an eventuality. Scorning chronological order, I began with Kierkegaard and Sartre, then moved quickly to Spinoza, Hume, Kafka, and Camus. I was not bored, as I had feared I might be; rather, I found myself fascinated by the alacrity with which these great minds unflinchingly attacked morality, art, ethics, life, and death. I remember my reaction to a typically luminous observation of Kierkegaard’s: “Such a relation which relates itself to its own self (that is to say, a self) must either have constituted itself or have been constituted by another.” The concept brought tears to my eyes. My word, I thought, to be that clever! (I’m a man who has trouble writing two meaningful sentences on “My Day at the Zoo.”) True, the passage was totally incomprehensible to me, but what of it as long as Kierkegaard was having fun? Suddenly confident that metaphysics was the work I had always been meant to do, I took up my pen and began at once to jot down the first of my own musings. The work proceeded apace, and in a mere two afternoons-with time out for dozing and trying to get the two little BBs into the eyes of the bear-I had completed the philosophical work that I am hoping will not be uncovered until after my death, or until the year 3000 (whichever comes first), and which I modestly believe will assure me a place of reverence among history’s weightiest thinkers. Here is but a small sample of the main body of intellectual treasure that I leave for posterity, or until the cleaning woman comes.
I. Critique of Pure Dread
In formulating any philosophy, the first consideration must always be: What can we know? That is, what can we be sure we know, or sure that we know we knew it, if indeed it is at all knowable. Or have we simply forgotten it and are too embarrassed to say anything? Descartes hinted at the problem when he wrote,
