not in its lack of moderation, but in its lack of decisiveness. In no field was the German revolution pushed ahead far enough…. The German revolution dealt far too circumspectly with the old men in business and in the army; it spared too much of the old bureaucracy. This double mistake was exposed on July 20. Hitler should have struck harshly at the disloyal Left, but also shown no mercy to the disloyal Right. Because he did not strike, or did not strike hard enough, the irreparable consequences emerged, with an increasingly dire effect, in the course of the war. In all the occupied countries of Europe German policy proved to be burdened by all the prejudices of superannuated rules of warfare and outmoded diplomacy; it was unable to exploit the novelty and breadth of the magnificent mission that had been offered to it; it proved incapable of transforming an old-fashioned war of conquest into a revolutionary war. It believed it would be able to reduce the violence of warfare to a minimum in order to win over European public opinion—and was forced to see this opinion turning against itself because it was offering the European public nothing new and compelling.” Cited in Nolte, Faschismus, p. 380.
71. Cf. Trevor-Roper, Last Days, p. 175.
72. Hitler’s political and personal testaments are both printed in: N.B. 3569-PS.
73. The original text of this document was destroyed; it is given here in von Below’s reconstruction as cited by Trevor-Roper, Last Days, pp. 194 f.
74. See Lev Bezymenski, The Death of Adolf Hitler, p. 72; cf. also Trevor-Roper, Last Days, p. 196.
75. Trevor-Roper, Last Days, p. 198.
76. The Russian commission’s autopsy report, Document 12, claims that remains of a crushed ampoule of poison were found in the mouth of the corpse, which it believed to be Hitler. But the report does not mention the distinct odor of bitter almonds given off by cyanide compounds, which was observed in the other bodies. German participants have denied that any fragments of skull could have been found, given the degree to which the flames consumed the body; cf. Maser, Hitler, pp. 432 f. Given Hitler’s fear that his suicide might be unsuccessful, it is not out of the question that he may have bitten a poison capsule and simultaneously pressed the trigger of his gun. Bezymenski’s effort (p. 72) to exclude this possibility by referring to the “foremost Soviet forensic scientist” is not convincing, not even in the manner of presentation. For the statements of eyewitnesses see Trevor-Roper, Last Days, p. 201.
77. Statement of Otto Gunsche, cited in Maser, Hitler, p. 432. The previous statement was made by the guard Hermann Karnau; see the detailed quotation in Fest, The Face of the Third Reich, p. 324, n. 40.
78. Bezymenski alleges (pp. 66 f.) as the motive for Soviet secrecy that the results of the medical investigation were being withheld in case “someone might try to slip into the role of the Fuhrer saved by a miracle.” Also, the aim was to exclude all possibility of error. There is no need to comment on the first argument, since silence could only give support to the claim that the Fuhrer was still alive, and in fact did. The second argument is also scarcely convincing, since the credibility of the autopsy record could not increase in the course of years. For the various rumors see Trevor-Roper, Last Days, Preface; he also gives an illuminating account of his vain efforts to obtain information or co-operation from the Russians.
1. Trevor-Roper, Last Days, p. 45.
2. Rauschning, Gesprache, p. 212.
3. Photo in the author’s possession.
4. Hitlers Zweites Buch, p. 174, and Mein Kampf, p. 646. Cf. also Le Testament politique de Hitler, pp. 62 f. (February 4, 1945): “Germany had no choice…. We could not rest content with a sham independence. That might be enough for Swedes or the Swiss, who are always willing to be put off with empty promises so long as their pockets are filled. The Weimar Republic asked for nothing more. But the Third Reich could not be content with such a modest claim. We were condemned to wage war.”
5. Tischgesprache, p. 273; also Rauschning, Gesprache, p. 105.
6. Best known, and frequently cited in German apologetic works, is Winston Churchill’s statement in Great Contemporaries, p. 226: “Whatever else may be thought about these exploits, they are certainly among the most remarkable in the whole history of the world.”
7. Le Testament politique de Hitler, p. 139 (February 26, 1945).
8. Tischgesprache, p. 489.
9. Hitler to the Munich court during his trial, February 26, 1924. See Boepple, p. 110.
10. Cf. Minutes of the Conference of the Expanded Executive Committee of the Communist International, Moscow, June 12–13, 1923, cited in Nolte, Theorien, p. 92. The speech is highly interesting because, contrary to all the conspiratorial theories that circulated later, it takes seriously the idea of Fascism as a catch-all for the masses disappointed with socialism.
11. Nietzsche, The Dawn (Morgenrote), aphorism 534.
12. Speech of January 25, 1939, cited in Jacobsen and Jochmann, Ausgewahlte Dokumente, p. 9. For the remark on German Social Democracy, cf. Libres propos, p. 36. American social scientists, in order to avoid the peculiar moral problems of terminology, have introduced the concept of “modernization” into the discussion. The Fascist systems in Italy or Germany, it is argued, represent above all stages in the process of repressing traditional social structures. Much of this argument fails to consider adequately that “modernization” can be only one interpretative aspect and that Fascism cannot be defined exclusively by its attitude toward the process of industrialization, urbanization, and rationalization. A detailed and satisfying study remains to be published. Cf. David Apter, The Politics of Modernization; H. A. Turner, Jr., “Faschismus und Anti-Modernismus,” in: Faschismus und Kapitalismus in Deutschland, pp. 157 ff., with further references.
13. At the beginning was the celebrated article in the New York Post of December 20,1941, on the gassing of a thousand Warsaw Jews.
14. Bertolt Brecht, “An die Nachgeborenen” (“To Posterity”), in: Selected Poems, trans. H. R. Hays, New York, 1947, p. 173.
15. Carlo Sforza, European Dictatorships, pp. 138 f.
16. Cf. Nolte, Theorien, p. 71.
17. Rauschning, Gesprache, p. 212.
18. Ibid., pp. 150, 262, 264.
(with Abbreviations)
ADAP = Akten zur Deutschen Auswartigen Politik 1918–1945, Serie D: 1937–1945, Baden-Baden, 1950 ff.
Adorno, Theodor W., Versuch uber Wagner, Munich, 1964.
Anatomie des SS-Staates, Olten and Freiburg i. Br., 1965.
Andics, Hellmuth, Der ewige Jude: Ursachen und Geschichte des Antisemitismus, Vienna, 1965.
Anonymous, Rudolf Hess, der Stellvertreter des Fuhrers (in the series Zeitgeschichte), Berlin, 1933.
Apter, David, The Politics of Modernization, Chicago, 1965.
