One Man's Fascination With Hitler
Here’s a story you probably haven’t heard, unless you read Drudge or
Breitbart. The Independent (U.K.) has published a story (from which I
pull freely), as have a couple of Jewish outlets. That’s all I can find.
You tell me if it qualifies as “news” that the “news “ media should be
covering.
It involves a young man who would someday become one of the best-known
and most powerful men in the world. A new book is out. It explores
recently uncovered diaries kept by this young man. The journal entries
document his fascination with Adolf Hitler and Nazism.
This young man traveled to Germany three times between 1937 and 1945.
Clearly he admired the Germans – and that includes the racial
imperatives of Nazism. The Independent reveals this entry logged after
he visited the Rhine in 1937:
“Very
beautiful, because there are many castles along the route. The towns
are all charming which shows that the Nordic races appear to be
definitely superior to their Latin counterparts. The Germans are really
too good – that’s why people conspire against them – they do it to
protect themselves.”
By today’s standards that sentiment is clearly racist. It glorifies
Aryans as “superior” to brown people. (If you doubt me, contact your
local La Raza office, read them that passage, and solicit a comment or
two.)
This young man wrote as well: “I have come to the conclusion that
fascism is right for Germany and Italy. What are the evils of fascism
compared to communism?” His travelling companion Lem Billings would
later state that the young man was “completely consumed by his interest
for the Hitler movement.”
The young man would return to Germany after the war, in 1945, and after
visiting Hitler’s famous “Eagle’s Nest” mountain-top retreat, would
write that, “Anyone who has visited these places can imagine how in a
few years, Hitler will emerge from the hate that now surrounds him and
come to be regarded as one of the most significant figures that ever
lived. There is something mysterious about the way he lived and died and
which will outlive him and continue to flourish. He was made of the
stuff of legends.”
This man was 20 in 1937. It is undeniable that any pro-Nazi sentiments
that might have existed in his youth – his father was a public apologist
for Hitler -- evaporated with time. Still, this man was one of the
most prominent men of the 20th century. How could this not be of
interest to the media?
You can hear the explanations. They are what the press had to say to
justify not reporting the late Senator Robert Byrd’s membership in the
KKK.
It’s not news. He was young and naïve. This is in some
respects true. There is no “hard” news here, but how often do we find
news reports about a prominent person’s past? George W. Bush for one
would find this curious. How many stories – hundreds? – were filed about
his wild partying days at roughly the same age?
It’s not news. These clearly were not his views during his public years.
Again, a defensible position. Yet when former Senator Trent Lott said
in 2002 that when, as a young man at approximately the same time (1948)
he’d supported the segregation agenda of Strom Thurmond, a position he’d
come clearly to repudiate, there followed an avalanche of negative
press and he was forced to resign in disgrace.
It’s speculative. Admiration does not necessarily an endorsement make.
I’ll buy that one too. Clearly when this young man evinced his
admiration for the “superiority” of the Nordic races he had no idea that
Hitler would make this a justification to slaughter six million Jews.
We could state just as emphatically that to declare Hitler would be “one
of the most significant figures that ever lived” is, in fact, accurate.
He was “the stuff of legends” – and so was Nero.
