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, . Juv ai ane Oy Doel ee a , to power that the churches. 4 themeelves at war with Hiller anc hin regime when they discovered dhat what he simed at was no less than the substitution of a pagas German god for Christ. Some brave representatives o7 the churches defied Hitler when all - others had been broken. Of these Pastor Nicmoeller was pre-eminent, In his prison cel! Niemoeller be- came the aym. Che struggling to maintain ils truth and identity against the Nezi - State. Mass Unrest His Springboard ++ The social, political and economic > eonditions, as they developed in * post-war Germany, smarting pain- - fully under humiliation and defeat and struggling for nearly fifteen years with internal disreneion and mass unemployment, aupplied the springboard for Hitler's leap to power in 1933. Having become dis- appointed in ali other parties, a bot of Christianity, St a a. an “Mein Kampf.” ich found expression in hir merciless treatment of opponents and persecution of the Jews, ac- cording to psychologists who have studied the msn’s career closely, emanated in Hitler from the pov- erty, wretchedneas and frustrations of his youth. Hilicr was born in an inn at Branay, Austria, close to the Ger- man frontier, April 20, 1889. His father was Alois Schickelgruber, the illegitimate gon of Alois Hitler. The future Fuehrer’s parent was originelly a peasant, but later en- oe eee Ainience ax a paradise,” he wrell tpieag 4] oat worla conaldares fon. Wert nild @ master cle lage nis contempt for the people and Hon, Wert mas a CF svounara capacity for hatred,’ better race.” from elemenu. And it wanagfene would bulld/perior human beings. In|in his classifi ‘addilion to dividing mankind inlo/man. that master cIW% and lead It! | inverior and su porlor re vided it alsa into infer cation as se ‘Destiny of German Rule Long His His Anti-Semitism Built on Idea of. Teng before he had dreamed of{ physica) weakness. He schieving power he had developed the principles that nations were destined to hate, oppose and de- teered for the German when accepted, felt 1 power and of great thin siroy one another; that the law of) At the front, where hi history was the struggle for sur-|a dispatch vival between peoples; that the tered the Austrian custoins service. !cermans were chosen by destiny to He was married three times, his third wife, who was also his niecc and ward, being twenty yesrs younger than her husband. She was the future dictator's mother. Seven children were born of the three marriages contracted by Hit- sufficient number of Germans had Jer’s father, who died of pulmonary accepted the Nazis when the lat-'hemorrhage et the age of 66. His ter, by means of force and ptopa-|three wives died of weak cicsts. " vanda ingeniously directed by/ two of Hitjer’s brothere and » sis- Fitter, had maneuvered themselves! ter died in childhood, A niece of into a position from which they the Fuehrer committed suicide. A could strike for seizure of the half-brother had no progeny. The Government. ; . But an understanding of Hitler's - eonduct both before and after his by students of the man in study of his youth and family history. One of the most striking contra- dictions was the discrepancy be- tween the magnetism he exercised over millions and the tinpreposses- aing gppearance of this champion of Aryan race purity. Professor Mex von Greber, zoted German authority on race hygiene. gave the - following description of Hitler when he met him for the first time at = political trial in « German court in 1923: . “Face and head, bad—mongrel. ’ Lew, receding forehead, unhand- fome nose, broad cheekbones, small eyes, dark heir. Expression of the face not that of one commanding full gelf-contro), but of one instant- . by excited. At the end—the expres- - glon of happy complacency.” Many who watched Hitler from _ the time when he first made his gppearance on the political scenc noticed his megalomania, his gani- . bier’s readiness to take risks, his habit of wild exaggeration and in- ability to gresp the full implice- tions of things he said and did. It was this failure to measure the significance of his words and deeds means of earning a living and{% a quite unprepared for the battle of}ampf. that was considered responsible for the coolness he displayed at critical moments afier violent outbursts of thought ard temper, although on occasions he was reported to fall ’ dinto tears and hysterics. Propsganida a Basie Weapon At the same time, however, he possessed an uncanny shrewdness in his estimate of the conduct and psychology of masses and indi- viduals, and developed to a fine - degree the art of swaying their emotions. The success he achieved in this field enhanced his contempt for the people, whom he called a rule over others, and that the great mags of the people were mediocri- ties immersed in a low materialism and destined to be dominated by a higher social type. The Jews he re- garded as particularly inferior and a danger to all other peoples. These, it may be Faid, were the only principles to which Hitler re- mained true, -for he violated the basic principles of the Nazi eco- nomic and socia) program, threw overboard the principle,. so often prociaimed by him as Nazi party German dictator himeelf neverjjeader and Fuebrer, that what he married. At the sge of 16 he suf- fered from lung trouble. On hii eccentrics in the family. In gen- erzl, the family showed definite tendencies to iliness and mental instability. - German Adherent From Youth Unlike his father, who was a fer- vent supporter of the Austro-Hun- ‘garian monarchy and wanic4 his Bun to follow him in the Govern-;Munich, desired was the union of all Ger- . a advent to power has been sought/mother's side there were several mans and not the incorporation of other races in the Reich, and abandoned, temporarily, as a tacti- ea) maneuver his repeatedly pro- claimed unalterable opposition to bolshevism, with which he con- summated a treaty of non-aggres- sion in the midst of the Polish crisis of August, 1939. Vitler left Vienna in 1813 for where he supported him- ment service, Adolf Hitler wes|/Self by doing odd jots-as « painter from early youth a strong acher- ent of Germany. He was convinced that it was the historic mission of the Germans to rule the Aus- tvians and the complex of races inhabiting Franz Josef’s land. Hitler had no love for his father and resented his insistence that he prepare himsclf for the Govern- ment service, Not venturing to de- fy his father openly, he adopted a policy of passive resistance by idling away his time at school, At the age of 14, after his father’s Geath, Hitler went to live with his mother at Linz. There he stayed until he was 19, pampered by his mother, who catered to his habit of idhing. Upon her death he found himself alone and friendless, without any jlife. He had been a failure at school, S4y §18 and wes unsble to pass examina~ enthusiasin, and barely managed keep. He shared Viennese engineer, carrier, be ‘ leas. No one wrote’ t one sent him parcels. | were recognized by hit however, and he wai with the Iron Cross... Regarded as an eccel comrades, he replied ¢ will hear much of me 1 Because his superiors | him acriously he was 7 beyond the rank of lar He was gassed, and th war found him in ‘a Passewalk, Pomerania with the collapse man pire. His hour struck, but, enraged a! tion and the revolutic at the Kaiser and ¥} von Hindenburg: failure to suppress th. he felt that his day + His confidence in hire great as his sense 0} After the war Hitt turn to ‘civilian - life: ficially demobilized, i the ee wan of, on is work, was. a teligehce berity at es to earn his|the Reichswehr had a a room with a);to dream vf revenge but had no real|to the illegal groups » friends and no contacts with wo- side the Reichswehr ¢ men. Those who came in contact|the overthrow of the with him were struck by his pas-(public and planning f. sion for politics and political wrangles. He drifted, unable to find regular employment of the kind hig father had wanted him to have. Hitler himself disclosed later his father’s prediction that no good would ever come of his son. He was poor, miserable and hopeless. War Came as a Deliverance Then came the wer. It lifted jHitler from obscurity into a state of exaltation. “To me those hours were like deliverance,” Hitler wrote of the outbreak of the war in “Mein “I am not ashamed to that, overcome hy a storm of I fell on my knees and tions. While his parents were atit)[thanked Heaven from an avertiow- alive Hitler had gone for a short}ing time to Munich, where he had taken some courses tn drawing. With his mother’s passing he be- took himself to Vienna, where he applied for admission to the Acad- emy of Arts. He thought of becom- ing an architect. The few drawings he presented to the director were so mediocre, however, that his ap- plication was denicd for lack of qualification. From 1909 to the outbreak of!corps” bands. He established rela- neart.” A year before, in Salzburg, the Austrian doctors had rejected him for military service because of resurgence of the co! officers and former tached themselves spiratory “free cor tions formed for poli and the spreading of Some of these helped stage revolts against the Govern notable of which ¥ archist Kapp “Putad 1920, when the ish tured Berlin, but w to yield by a gener claimed by the Ebert These “free corps” — were financed by mc~ ists, who likewise dermine the ‘Gov thwart the work allied Military Com lished in Germany,t armed, in ac 8 provisions of the Ve A Spy for Conspirafors Against . Joined ‘German Labor Party’ Ban Hitler acted as’ an InteTigence publican leaders, no officer or spy for these “freeing! s of Erzberger In 1919 Hitler | the task of keepl little band calling man Labor party this group ang wi thereafter by seve ficers and former “flock of sheep and blockheads,” a/the First World War, Hitler Jed ajtions with influential military cir- “mixture of stupidity and coward-|wretched existence. For a while he|cles both inside and outside the ice.” He was convinced that well-|lived in a Vienna “flophouse,”|Reichswehr. When the latter sup- Girected propaganda by s deter-|among beggars and vagabonda,|pressed the Communist regime in mined minority, backed by force at|He spent nights on park benches,/Bavaria in 1919, Hitler furnished the strategic moment, constituted! harassed by the police. He was an|information that Jed to the execu a sure road to vir tory. outcast among outcasts, eating at/tion of many Communists and So-|Ernst Rohm at 1 “By shrewd and constant appliv!a monastery sonp Kitchen. This:ciallst. The activities of the mili-/tain 0 afi : os : _ " ’ oo fheaaltanwet menrcania led mmonge other! Goverror aval