496 pages, Tauris Parke
Paperbacks, ISBN-13: 978-1848852778
Hitler’s Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a
Young Man by
Brigitte Hamann (the late German-Austrian historian who authored a number of
works in her life) and translated by Thomas Thornton, is more than just about
Vienna of Hitler’s youth; it is a well-researched, fact-filled work that lays
to rest many of the theories about Hitler’s psychology and motivations. The
author does not appear to have any thesis or hypothesis to explain the
phenomenon of Hitler’s rise to power, a refreshing change from the many
“explanations” of his ascendancy put forth over the decades. Many of the details
of Hitler’s early life are familiar to even passing acquaintances: he was born
in Linz Austria to a minor governmental official and his third wife, Klara, was
lazy and spoiled rotten by his mother (who died in 1907, probably of breast
cancer), and was abused by his father before he and his friend, August Kubizek,
a budding musician, decided to try their fortune in Vienna, where he just
barely survived by painting postcards, living in a men’s hostel for three years
and absorbing the extremist pamphlets and books produced there until the advent
of the First World War, which perversely gave meaning to his life, a meaning
that was subsequently shattered by the German defeat.
During
his miserable few years in Vienna, Hitler became a student of Pan-Germanic beliefs
and amongst his political idols was Karl Lueger, the Austrian politician, mayor
of Vienna and founder of the Christlichsoziale
Partei (Christian Social Party) who is credited with the transformation of
the city of Vienna into a modern city, yet whose populist and anti-Semitic
politics are sometimes viewed as a model for Hitler’s later Nazism. Much of
Hamann’s book is a study of Vienna, as during the Hitler’s early years in the
city the place was politically chaotic as rival nationalities – such as the
Czechs, Hungarians and, of course, Germans – battled one another on a variety
of topics in the Reichsrat, or
Imperial Council. The city was overcrowded with the poor from Eastern Europe
and the Austrian-Hungarian provinces – along with Jews, Czechs and Italians who were routinely discriminated
against – was criminally lacking in proper housing and sanitation facilities, while
any sort of public welfare was nonexistent. Vienna was not a happy or congenial
place in these pre-World War I years.
In
reading this book, I became aware that the phenomenon of Hitler was not so much
the product of the man as it was of the times. He was not an extraordinary man,
nor was he the epitome of evil personified; he was the right person at the
right time (or rather, the wrong person at the wrong time) to be the focus of
German pride, spirit and colossal resentment. He was not even a good leader: he
was able to rouse his followers by his speeches and personal mystique, but he
came to believe that his talents were greater than they were, especially in
terms of military strategy. Perhaps we are fortunate that he was an egotistical
demagogue; his inability to correctly assess his own capability was his
downfall and the downfall of the Third Reich. Under more capable leadership,
Germany would have been much harder to defeat. If you, like Tolstoy, ponder the
question as to whether history is made by great persons or by inexorable
historical forces, you may find in this book support for the idea that the
times make the man, not the man makes the times.
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