BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS

Rise of aMonster[i I C 1 i A K I.) L O W R Y

Hitler: 1889-1936: Hubris, by IanKcrshaw (Norton, 845 pp., $35)

H I ILER has become the dark center ofphi[osophicai, historical, and psy-

cholo^ica] debates that swir[ and doubleback on themselves until there arcdebates about the debates and Hitlerhimselt beccMnes the obscured. In liissurvey Explaining Hitler, Ron Rosen-hauni ilhistrates this phenomenon byreproducing; a chart of dizzying complex-ity desif̂ ned to prove, through the priceand size of gauze at the time, thatHitler's dying mtither was overpre-scribed iodoform by a Jewish doctor(thus engendering a yenocidal grudge inher son). The other extreme is repre-sented by filmmaker Claude Lanz-mann—deliciously skewered by Ro-senbaum—who rejects any attempt toexplain Hitler and the HoltKaust as adesecration (and not just of the histori-cal fact, but of his film Shoah).

hi the first installment of his tw{vvol-ume biography, Ian Kershaw hypassesthe grand philosophical musings andexplanatory muddle with a straightfor-ward narrative oi Hitler's rise. To theconfounding question. How could ithappen?, Kershaw has a basic, implicitanswer; pcilitics. Hitler wasn't a demon-ic apparition or a product of historicalinevitability, but a gifted demagogue andhater who through ftirce of circum-stance, the ineptitude of his opponents,and his own sharp political instincts bul-lied his way to power. Kershaw's Hitler isthe "outside story," an account terrifyingexactly because it seems so frankly possi-ble.

As a young man. Hitler was already afrustrated egomaniac, seized with gran-

Adolf Hitler as an infant

diose dreams he had neither the talentnor the discipline to realize. (His workhabits never changed—-in the 19.30s, hisagriculture minister once spent twoyears trying to win an audience with himto discuss policy.) As a penniless artist inVienna, he consumed the gutter anti-Semitic press and fevered nationalistpolitics of that city, his views hardenedin the wake of World War I, and by themid 1920s he was the dangerous thugwith four or five fixed, murderous ideashe would take all the way to his bunkerin 1945.

With Hitler, the outside story isalmost all that exists. "He doesn'tsmoke," complained one Nazi official,"he doesn't drink, he eats almost noth-ing but green stuff, he doesn't touch anywomen! How are we supposed to under-stand him to get him across to other peo-ple.'" Even in private, people got thesense he was acting, and his relationswith women were always bizarre (olderwomen tended to make him gifts of dogwhips, young girls to attempt suicideover him). In the army, where he was thehappiest. Hitler had just one closefriend: a dog. "I liked him so much." herecalled. "He only obeyed me."

Kershaw's Hitler has one talent: rab-

ble-rousing. He was "discovered" in1919 when he and orher soldiers wereattending a right-wing indoctrinationsession in the wake of the brutal crush-ing ot the Bavarian socialist revolt (in atrick of right-wing politics throughoutthis period, the socialists or Jews or who-ever were blamed for the violence atten-dant upon tbeir own repression). Afterone of the lectures. Hitler was harangu-ing fellow students about the Jews whenan instructor noticed his animatedspeaking style. Soon, he was giving talksto fellow soldiers, then attending andquickly dominating meetings of a tinyproto-Nazi party.

The Hitler style ot politics neverchanged: It was all agitation, all propa-ganda, all mobilizaticin toward the goalof power. Vivid posters announcing theearly Nazi meetings were supposed toprovoke the Lett into attending (Hitlerhimself designed the striking party ban-ner with the swastika in a white circle ona red background). The presence ofopponents made for an electric atmos-phere and the possibility of violence,which in turn would win the party atten-tion and hence more crowds.

Hitler himself was almost entirely acreature of crowds. Early on, the cele-brated party speaker refused an invita-tion to address a wedding: "I must havea crowd when I speak. In a small inti-mate circle I never know what to say."But tor all his dependence on the mass.Hitler had only contempt for it. "Thebroad masses are blind and stupid anddon't know what they are doing." "Forthe crowd, 'understanding' is only ashaky platform." "What is stable is emo-tion: hatred."

The nature ot Hitler's politics—aswell as his impulsive temperament—dictated his recklessly aggressive tactics.Because his supporters couldn't stay per-petually agitated—and his storm troop-ers couldn't stay perpetually restrained-—

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NAliONAl, R B V I E W / M A R C H 8. 1999 47

Hitler was always in a position of havingto use it or lose it. This prompted theridiculous putsch in 1923. The brief lossof numicntum while he haggled over theterms of the chancellorship in 1932-33threatened the Nazi movement, andeven once in power he felt compelled topush one risky foreign-policy adventureafter another to keep his forward mo-tion. Hitler's frequent suicide threatsperfectly complemented his politics—allor nothing.

Despite the perpetual motion. Hitlerhimself never much changed. There heis, at tbe beer-hall putsch, excitedlybrandishing a pistol like a gangster, hold-ing his political opponents at gunpoint.And there he is as Reich chancellor—leader of a great European nation—stillbrandishing his pistol during the Nightof the L(.>ng Knives, spittle on his lips ashe promises to have his opponents shot(and quickly following through on thethreat). Murder is a theme throughout,from the exterminationist anti-Jewishrhetoric at the very beginning, to theputsch, to his public support for Nazimurderers even as he was poised on thebrink of power, to his murder of mem-bers ot the Reichstag in 1934, which therest of that body took with equanimity,indeed cheered.

It should have been clear all alongwhat Germany was getting in Hitler, andin any civilized nation his career shouldhave been disqualifying. Without theeconomic crisis, it would have been inGermany. Instead, the legitimacy of theWeimar Republic was washed away fromthe right and the left, and power brokersamong tbe army and conservative politi-cians, who had played footsie with Hitlereven back before the 1923 putsch,looked to him to bring popular backingto the authoritarian regime they hoped,but couldn't qviite manage, to establishthemselves.

Hitler, who understood power in a waythey didn't, quickly overmatched thewise men who had l"n>ped to box him in.Within a matter of months, crucial cen-ters of opposition had been swept away,and most Nazi thugger>', in the name of"order," enjoyed popular backing. Theenormity of the Holocaust—its tech-niques and its ambition and its other-worldly cruelty—will always provoke ahorrified sense of mystery and theaching need for explanation. On the

other hand, it's not necessarily so mysti-fying that a band of ruthless criminals,once in possession of state power, shouldset about on a program of murder. Themen wh{i negotiated Hitler into powerrefused to reckon on this. Their part inHitler makes it not just a tale of evilascendant, but of the awful price of pol-itics practiced poorly. NR

WritingUnafraidJ A Y N O R D L I N G E R

A Passion for Truth: The Selected Writingsof Eric Breindel, edited by JohnPodhoretz (HarperCollins, 230 pp.,$25)

WHEN Eric Breindcl died a year ago,he was accorded something like a

state funeral. Politicians, tycoons, andscholars all mourned a singular talent,whose influence had been great. Youwould have thought a major figure hadpassed from our midst. Indeed, one had.

Breindcl was a journalist—only ajournalist—but he scribbled with apurpose. Erom his perch at theNew York Post, he attracted contro- ^~^versy, scorn, and intense admira-tion. His style was both erudite aiii!hlunt. In his causes, he was unre-lenting. He was an Everest of indig-nation, still inveighing while othershad given out. Breindel provedjust what an opinion writer canaccomplish—provided he has thewill, intelligence, and guts.

Now there is a collection, editedand introduced by Jt)hn Pod-horetz (who succeeded Brein- fidel as the Post's chief editorialvoice). Here we find some 70of Breindel's columns, reflectinghis three main concerns, or obses-sions, as Podhoretz admiringly callsthem: anti-Communism, New YorkCity, and the Jews. Like all true "^^teachers, Breindel never hesitated "'"̂to repeat himself. His work is enough togive obsession a good name. We see thathe dedicated his career to an awesome

task: memory-keeping and myth-des-troying.

Breindel was a dream of an anti-Commtmist. He was gloriously unatraidof the cry "Red-baiter!" He called aCommunist a Communist when nothingwas more impolitic, and he shamedthose who refused to do likewise. He wasa sort of hunter, a Simon Wiesenthalsniffing the terrain for Stalin's friends—and Hitler's, and Arafat's—demandingthat they be held accountable for whatthey were.

Even when the Soviet Union expired,Breindel would not desist. If necessary,he would use his column to conduct hisown little Nuremberg trials. Was DavidDuke exposed as an ex-Nazi inLouisiana? Fine: But what about the ex-(or maybe not so ex-) Communists hold-ing office in New York? Wben mtistAmericans ct)uldn't tell Gus Hall fromMonty Hall, Breindel kept a sharp eyeon the CP-USA, whose capacity formischief he always considered underrat-ed.

He would not let Kim Philby die inpeace. Oh no. He remembered the Al-banians the traitor had caused to die onthe beach (and if he were writing today,he would not turn away from tbe slaugh-ter of other Albanians in Kosovo). Hec<nild have his fun with Reds and their

fellow-travelers, like the absurd JoelKovel, Alger Hiss Professor of SocialStudies at Bard College (really). Buthe would typically add, "Before welaugh too hard," reminding us of theinhumanity of the Communist ent-erprise.

With the release of the Venonapapers (Soviet cables), Breindel hadanother batch of columns to write(plus a book). He wanted Ameri-cans to face "the dread notion that

some things are true even thoughRichard Nixon or Joe McCarthy

said they were." He would nottake a htiliday from Hiss or the

Rosenbergs or I. E Stone or J.io Robert Oppenheimer (who

even today is scandalouslyuntouchable). Neither would he

allow lies about Paul Robeson topass unchallenged, even in the

interests t)f black-Jewish relations.It's not that Breindel was intolerant,

snitch-minded, and untorgiving. It's thathe abhorred dishonesty, and revered

48 NATIONAL REVIKW/MARCH 8, 1999