Self-Portrait

HITLER'S SECRET CONVERSATIONS (597 pp.)--Adolf Hitler--Farrar, Straus & Young ($6.50).

Few people remember Adolf Hitler as a thinker. Yet he was one--the kind that is all too frequently found in saloons or on park benches, spinning grandiose, hate-laden theories about the world, tossing off answers to all questions in a manner that the Germans call dumm-schlau (stupid-smart). Such men are usually ignored by others as annoying but unimportant cranks. By a tragedy of history, Adolf Hitler gained the power to put his rambling, dumm-schlaue theories into practice.

For ten hours each day during the war, Hitler pondered military problems; for 30 to 45 minutes each night he scribbled his solutions. Then, into the early hours of the morning, with his intimates gathered around over tea and cakes, Hitler reminisced about his youth, dreamed about his empire, pontificated about whatever came to mind. Hitler's Secret Conversations is the stenographic record of these ramblings in the Fuehrer's East Prussian and Russian headquarters between July 1941 and November 1944. They were taken down in shorthand by trusted party officials, Heinrich Heim and Henry Picker, then corrected and preserved by the Fuehrer's factotum, SS Leader Martin Bormann.* Samples:

War. "For the good of the German people, we must wish for a war every 15 or 20 years . . . Peoples, like individuals, sometimes need regenerating by a little bloodletting ... It fills me with shame when I think that I have lost more blood shaving than on the field of battle."

Marriage. "When a sailor returns home after a long voyage, he has something like a new marriage. After months of absence, he enjoys some weeks of complete liberty. That would never have been the case with me, and my wife would justly have been bored to death. I'd have had nothing of marriage but the sullen face of a neglected wife, or else I'd have skimped my duties. That's why it's better not to get married. The bad side of marriage is that it creates rights. In that case, it's far better to have a mistress. The burden is lightened, and everything is placed on the level of a gift." As a listener looked unhappy, Hitler added: "What I've said applies only to men of a higher type, of course!"

God. "It's impossible to escape the problem of God. When I have the time, I'll work out the formulae to be used on great occasions. We must have something perfect both in thought and in form."

Missionaries & Priests. "To a missionary, the smell of dirt is agreeable. From this point of view, they themselves are the dirtiest swine of all. They have a horror of water. And those repulsive priests, when they question a child of seven in the confessional, it's they themselves who incite it to sin."

Dancing. "The most beautiful dance in the world is ... the waltz, a perfect harmony of movement and music."

Conquered People. "It would be sheer folly to place at their disposal a health service such as we know it in Germany; and so--no inoculations and other preventive measures for the natives! . . . The local population must be given no facilities for higher education . . . Notices in the Ukrainian language 'Beware of the Trains' are superfluous; what on earth does it matter if one or two more locals get run over by the trains?"

Americans. "There's nobody stupider than the Americans . . . I'll never believe that an American soldier can fight like a hero."

History. "I'm sure that Nero didn't set fire to Rome."

Food. "It's impossible to eat enough of what one likes."

Churchill. "The raddled old whore of journalism ... an unprincipled swine."

F.D.R. "A sick brain."

Stalin. "Must command our unconditional respect . . . He is a beast, but he's a beast on the grand scale."

Hitler. "A religious figure . . . Already Arabs and Moroccans are mingling my name with their prayers. Amongst the Tartars I shall become Khan. The only thing of which I shall be incapable is to share the sheiks' mutton with them. I'm a vegetarian, and they must spare me ..."

When defeat came closer & closer, Hitler's audience dwindled to his female secretaries, his hard-drinking adjutant, his quack doctor and his vegetarian cook. They had heard his theories many times before and were bored, but they sat helplessly drowsing into the morning, a captive audience. Only Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress, ever did anything about it. She would pointedly ask the Fuehrer the time. Hitler usually took the hint and closed the window on the refuse-laden backyard of his mind.

* Bormann disappeared during the tumultuous days of the Nazi defeat, but left the 1,045 typed pages of the Hitler transcript behind. British Historian H. R. Trevor-Roper, a leading expert on Hitler, affirms its authenticity.

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