The First World War was the most defining occurrence of the twentieth century. It set events in motion that not only haunt us today but will do so for years to come. Eight million soldiers died worldwide, another 20 million were crippled and 3 million others died of disease. The lost contributions to Western civilization some of these young people would have provided are immeasurable. In addition, the war was fought with a brutality which Europe thought it had long outgrown. The ensuing peace treaties were not negotiated but represented dictates that led directly to the Second World War. The result of that catastrophe was the "Cold War." Now,after the implosion of the Soviet Union, America finds herself, paradoxically, confronted by the same problem which had driven Austria to war in 1914. The Balkan crises have come back full circle.
     The Serbs had been to Austria what Castro's Cuba was to the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Serbia was a constant irritant which had to be removed. The more so after a Serbian faction had taken part in the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo. There was some concern by the government in Vienna that Russia might not be able to sit idly by when her protégée was about to be taught a lesson in international conduct; but for that contingency there was a treaty with the Germans who would be happy to come to the rescue.

Germany's military had actually been itching to get into a war with Russia for some time. The General Staff was extremely concerned over the buildup of the Russian army after the defeat by the Japanese in 1905. It was estimated that by 1915, or 1917 at the latest, a strength would have been reached which would have made it unbeatable. Thus, a preventive war was thought to be the solution. The fact that the Russians had a treaty with the French presented a problem, because it was a given that Germany would have to fight the war on two fronts simultaneously.

     This predicament disconcerted the military immensely. The solution arrived at was that one would deal with the weaker partner first and then throw all one's armies onto the stronger one. In the context of the first decade of the twentieth century, France was regarded as the weaker of the two, so she had to be eliminated first while a holding action would take place in the east. France had realized this also, and after her defeat by Prussia in 1871, had started to fortify the eastern frontier. Schlieffen, the German army's Chief of Staff, was aware that a frontal attack would be suicidal and could not bring the hoped for quick end to the conflict. He read up on history and decided that Hannibal's victory over the Romans at Cannae was the example to be used. Encirclement and annihilation of the French forces were to be the answer. Easier said than done. To the south was Switzerland. Her mountains provided excellent defenses and a passage through that country was, therefore, not an option. To the north, on the other hand, was Belgium, which is ideally suited for warfare because of the essentially flat terrain. But there was a problem too.
     When the Belgians had revolted against the Dutch in 1830, a conference was held in London. The major powers including Prussia and Austria decided that Belgium should remain perpetually neutral and guarantees to that effect were given. Nevertheless, Schlieffen felt that the route through Belgium was the fastest and most efficient way to get at France. The strong right wing of the army would traverse Belgium, then head west for the Seine basin. At that point it would link up with the army's weaker left wing, which would achieve its breakthrough from the staging areas around Saarbourg. Paris would be encircled and the French army would be forced to fight with their backs to the now useless defensive structures. Admirable plan, but how about Belgium's neutrality? Schlieffen was concerned about it, but not sufficiently to abandon the plan because, 1)there really was no good alternative, and 2)there was no guarantee that the French would respect it, since Belgium provided the direct route to the heart of Germany. Schlieffen did consider that the British might come to the defense of the Belgians since they were signatories to the independence treaty. If that were to be the case, they wouldn't be able to land a sufficient amount of troops in short order anyway. Whatever expeditionary force the British did manage to get across the channel would just be included in the noose around the French.
     As far as the other belligerents were concerned, France was eager to fight because she wanted Alsace-Lorraine back, and England also had little use for the German Emperor. Cousin Willie had contracted imperial fever, had started to build a sizeable navy and thus challenged Britannia's right to rule the waves. In addition, he had plans to build a railroad that would link Germany with Baghdad. Although Iraq was still part of the Ottoman Empire and did not yet exist as a separate entity, the Middle East was clearly England's sphere of influence. Moreover, to have Germany even as a trading partner practically next door to India was out of the question. Since the Germans also had colonial ambitions in Africa and other assorted places when the world had already been parceled out to England, France, Spain, Holland, Portugal, etc., it was time to teach them a lesson. Wilhelm's problem, as "Johnny Come Lately, "was that he still wanted to get a piece of the pie when it had already been distributed. This was also Hitler's problem.
     Schlieffen was a military man who could not concern himself with the political implications and the feelings of the local population when its peaceful country was to be suddenly invaded. It would have been up to Wilhelm to sit down with his counterpart, King Albert, discuss the problem he faced and negotiate free passage. But that would have required a rational, ideal world rather than the emotional, real one we live in. Schlieffen died in 1912 so he didn't know whether or not his plan would have worked. Moltke attempted it, slightly halfheartedly, in 1914 but neglected Schlieffen's dying words: "Macht mir den rechten Flügel stark!" (See to it that the right wing is strong). The right wing was not strong enough; troops had been withdrawn for the campaign against Russia. The army wheeled too early to the east of Paris instead of west. This led to the "miracle of the Marne," four years of trench warfare and millions of casualties.
     In addition, the German High Command had been totally oblivious to the feelings of the Belgian population. The generals had thought that an ultimatum for free passage under the pretext of an imminent French invasion would bring the country joyfully to their side. The opposite was the case, of course. The vastly outnumbered Belgian army resorted to guerrilla tactics. When the advancing Germans found themselves shot at from houses rather than meeting the enemy in open battle, they panicked and went on a rampage. The brutalities which occurred in Belgium during the first weeks of the war shocked the conscience of the world to an extent that whatever degree of goodwill Germany might have had among neutrals, especially the United States, was damaged severely and to some extent irretrievably. The image of the "Hun" was born and has remained with us.
     From a purely military point of view the plan might have worked, even in 1914, had it been faithfully adhered to. It did work, after all, for Hitler, in somewhat modified form, during May and June 1940. But as the events of 1914-1918 proved for the first time in the history of mankind, wars are no longer decided simply by victorious battles. The press had come into its own and the incessant propaganda efforts on both sides of the front poisoned the atmosphere just as much as the gas to which the soldiers were exposed. This made reconciliation extremely difficult, if not impossible.

One may now legitimately ask what Austria was doing in Bosnia in the first place. Since U.S.troops have, a hundred years later, taken over Austria's problems it is worthwhile to look into the history of that part of the world which is a veritable hornet's nest. The area has not known peace for any appreciable time since the middle ages. Around 1200 A.D.Bosnia was run by a series of feudal lords who adhered to a Catholic Church but not of the Roman variety. Hungarians moved in to stamp out this heresy and, of course, to help themselves to some of the property. Then came the Turks in 1463 who overran the country, but wisely gave the landed gentry the option to become Muslims, which would allow them to keep their estates. When there is a choice between poverty and continued well being, the decision isn't all that hard. This is why we now have a sizable Muslim population in an area of Europe where one would ordinarily not expect it. The peasantry was, as usual, the loser. Although they were allowed to keep their Serbo-Orthodox religion, they were excessively taxed. In addition - up until 1676 -they had to provide a tribute of boy slaves to serve in the Janissary Corps of the Turkish army.
     Southwest of Bosnia proper is Herzegovina which had an equally colorful history. The area, initially known as Hum, bordered on Turkish-held territory, and the Habsburg Emperor, Frederick III, thought it a good idea in 1448 to support the local Christians against Muslim invaders. He elevated the local warlord to the position of Duke of St.Sava, which made the area known as the Duchy or Herzogtum - a term which over the years has mutated to Herzegovina. The peasants were Serbo-Orthodox in religion, but there were also some Catholics even of the Roman variety because Franciscans had found their way into the area. Frederick's well-meant plan could not stop the Turkish advance, and Bosnia-Herzegovina became the westernmost outpost of the Ottoman Empire until the latter third of the nineteenth century.
     The Turks ruled the provinces from the city of Travik, but Constantinople was far away and the local Beys ran the show to their liking. Law and order were not prominent aspects of life. The town which harbored the real power, "Bosna Sarayi," i.e."Bosnian Palace," was about 60 miles to the south and soon became known as Sarajevo. Intermittent uprisings continued, but this was the Turks' problem and the rest of Europe was not interested. Things changed in the middle of the nineteenth century. The Ottoman Empire had become increasingly weaker and numerous heirs showed interest in different portions. The goal was to get Turkey out of Europe, and the Balkans would be divided between a Russian and Austrian sphere of influence.
     Although Bosnia-Herzegovina are not choice morsels of real estate, Austria was interested for several reasons. There were some mineral deposits that would help the economy, but more importantly the country would provide a land bridge to the Dalmatian seacoast which did belong to Austria. In case of war the harbors could be rendered useless by blockade and without overland supply routes, they might fall into the hands of the Serbs who, by now, had also been gripped with expansionist aspirations. The plan to annex Bosnia-Herzegovina was therefore suggested to Franz Joseph in 1854, but he nixed the idea. Austria's eyes were still riveted to the north until Bismarck came along and changed the map of Europe.
     From 1438 to 1806 the Habsburg Dynasty had supplied, with one brief interruption, all the emperors of what was called the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation, and the crown, symbol of the unity of the Reich, resided in Vienna's Hofburg. The end came in 1806 when Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine. The Emperor, Franz II, knew what was in the offing and had in 1804 already assumed the title Emperor of Austria as Franz I. At the Vienna Congress, which formally ended the Napoleonic wars, Germany became a loose confederation of kingdoms and principalities. The Austrian Emperor remained, however, chief arbitrator of German affairs. This changed when Bismarck became Chancellor of Prussia. He was determined that Prussia rather than Austria should exercise leadership, and the showdown came in 1866. Just as WWII was Hitler's doing, the Civil War in Germany between the North and the South was unleashed by Bismarck.
     By 1866 Bismarck was highly unpopular, even in Prussia, and about to lose his job as chancellor. He needed a war to keep it. On Prussia's side were the reluctant north German mini-states and an eager Italy. On Austria's side were the Palatinate, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Saxony. The dividing line ran roughly from Frankfurt to Dresden. The political differences were enhanced by the religious. The North was Protestant and the South Catholic.
     In contrast to the American Civil War, it was all over in about seven weeks. The Austrians defeated the Italians, but it had no effect because the Prussians beat the southern Alliance. The result was that Austria lost the province of Venetia and, more importantly, all influence over the German states and principalities. These came now under Prussia's domination. This "Blitzkrieg" paved the way for Bismarck's next war against France in 1870 and his ultimate goal of creating a unified Germany with the total exclusion of Austria. Four years after the lost war, the Austrians were in no position to help the French who, at any rate, had not helped them when they were in dire need. France was promptly crushed within a few months and thoroughly humiliated. Alsace-Lorraine, which Louis XIV had appropriated from Germany in 1648, had to be returned, the monarchy of Napoleon III was replaced by a republic, and a huge indemnity had to be paid. After that, revanche was the foremost thought in Frenchmen's minds. Bismarck had been victorious and single-handedly made Wilhelm, the King of Prussia, Emperor of Germany as Wilhelm I. Wilhelm had no taste for an imperial crown. There was already an Austrian Emperor whom he personally liked and didn't want to annoy, but the Iron Chancellor, who by now had the people behind him, was not to be argued with. This is how what was called at that time the Kleindeutsche Lösung (small German solution), which excluded the German-speaking provinces of Austria, came about. Since Austria was deprived of influence in Germany for the first time in her entire history, she now had to look to the Balkans for compensation.
     Under these circumstances Bosnia-Herzegovina began to interest not only military circles in Vienna, but Franz Joseph as well. In 1875 he went on a sightseeing tour to Dalmatia to get a firsthand view. The Franciscans in Dubrovnik pleaded with him to help their brethren in Herzegovina, and Franz Joseph was quite open to the suggestion. After returning home he cooled again to the plan, but by the next year there was a war between Russia and Turkey, which was joined after a while by the Serbs on the Russian side. Turkey lost and Russia had such big plans that the rest of the continental powers, as well as England, became alarmed and the Congress of Berlin was convened in 1878. The offshoot was that there would be a small Bulgaria, a larger Russia and Serbia, while Austria would get the mandate to occupy, pacify and develop Bosnia-Herzegovina.
     Initially the Austrian military had thought it would take "two companies and a band" to accomplish the occupation. It didn't turn out that way. Mutinous Turkish soldiers joined the locals to give the peacemakers a rather hot welcome. Three months later, when the occupation was finally accomplished, the Austrian losses were 946 killed, 3980 wounded and 272 missing. A semblance of order was achieved and so was a degree of economic development, but this did little to erase lingering hatred, especially among the Serbian population.
     By 1900 nationalistic fervor was on the rise. Young officers banded together in Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey demanding change. Among the Slavs, "Panslavism" became the battle cry and with it the goal of an independent South Slav, i.e., Yugoslav, state under Serbian leadership. Serbia, which had heretofore been friendly to the monarchy and had been its main trading partner, shifted gears and ordered a huge amount of arms from France instead of Skoda. Austria retaliated by placing an embargo on Serbian pigs and cattle, dead or alive, ostensibly to prevent import of infected meat. Previously about 90% of all of Serbia's exports -which were mainly agricultural products -had gone to the monarchy but now the Serbs rerouted them. The "Pig War" lasted four years, didn't hurt Serbia all that much economically, but made Austria highly unpopular with the Serbs.
     In 1907 there was a change of government in Turkey. Young army officers, the now proverbial "Young Turks," took over in Constantinople and induced the Sultan to revive the Constitution of 1876 and allow elections. Warning flags went up immediately in Vienna. What would happen if the Young Turks demanded elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina for an Ottoman assembly? This had to be prevented. Ährenthal, Austria's Foreign Secretary, got together with his Russian counterpart, Izvolsky, and a deal was hatched at one of the estates of Count Berchtold. Russia would accept Austria's annexation of the provinces and, in return, Austria would push Turkey to allow Russian warships from the Black Sea to go through the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean: a goal Russia had long desired. The arrangement was secret and both actions were to have taken place simultaneously. Apparently no timetable had been agreed to. When Ährenthal jumped the gun and announced annexation, an immediate uproar occurred in all the capitals of Europe. Austria had unilaterally violated the Berlin Accord. To make matters worse, Izvolsky denied complicity. According to Trenches on the Web Timeline, Izvolsky vented his fury privately to Germany's Chancellor von Bülow with the words, "The dirty Jew has deceived me. He lied to me, he humbled me, that frightful Jew."
     Russia threatened war, but abstained when Vienna made it clear that the government would publish the secret documents. At any rate, Russia was in no position to go to war because it had been only three years after the disastrous loss to Japan and the subsequent attempts at revolution that had lasted until 1907. England and France were, however, also highly upset. Austria was odd man out and there was only Wilhelm II who stuck up for her.
     The next crisis came in 1912-1913. The Balkan League consisting of Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia attacked Turkey in October of 1912. The campaign was an overwhelming success. Within a few weeks the Serbs reached the Adriatic coast and the Bulgarians were on the outskirts of Constantinople. This presented a serious problem for Austria because Vienna was in favor of the status quo. Serbia had been landlocked all along and now she would have maritime interests, which threatened directly Austria's Dalmatian province. Conrad, chief of the Austrian army, advocated war against Serbia to prevent this territorial acquisition. Franz Ferdinand, the Crown Prince, was dead set against war. His arguments were: yes, we can overrun Serbia in a few weeks but then what? It will cost Austria billions to build up the country and on top of that one would have a permanently hostile population on one's hands. In addition, he was concerned about Russia. Franz Ferdinand told his staff,

Izvolsky's previously mentioned antisemitic outburst requires some explanation. It needs to be seen in the light of Russia's "Jewish problem" which had attracted international attention. Details can be found in Poliakov's book Geschichte des Antisemitismus as well as in Lindemann's Esau's Tears. Suffice it to say that the 5 million Jews Russia had acquired as a result of the partitions of Poland and conquests from the Turks, in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, were not welcome in Holy Mother Russia herself. Jews were seen as enemies of Christ and, therefore, a subversive influence to the established order. They were commanded to remain in their previous domiciles, called the Pale of Settlement. Although it is at times stated that the Jews were "cramped into" this area, it needs to be recognized that the Pale actually included the Crimea, Bessarabia, Belarus, Russian Poland, Lithuania, as well as most of the Ukraine. As a result of pogroms, especially during the end of the nineteenth century, there occurred massive emigration to destinations including the United States. Since the sudden arrival of large numbers of Jews has always led to anti-Jewish sentiments in the population of a host country, influential Jewish circles in the U.S. became concerned. The financier Jakob Schiff, of German-Jewish descent, decided to do something about it. The best solution was deemed to be the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty and the creation of a democratic Russia. When the war with Japan erupted, both Russia and Japan required money which was sought from America. Schiff not only torpedoed the Russian requests in the U.S. but also tried to do his level best to prevent Russia from receiving loans in Europe. In addition, Schiff arranged for loans to Japan which enabled that country to win the war. Nevertheless, the Romanov dynasty had survived for the time being. The Russo-Japanese war had brought, however, attempts at revolution in its wake. Young Jews were prominently involved and financial help continued to arrive from private circles in the U.S. The book by Best, To Free A People, provides the documentation. It is, therefore, understandable that Russia's ruling circles, including Izvolsky, had no particular love for Jews.
     Since America had become hostile to Russia, and neither German nor English Jewish money was readily forthcoming, the French saw their chance and invested heavily in Russian reconstruction. Thus, strong ties were forged which contributed to France's stand in 1914. The Russo-Japanese war was the first time that American Jewish financial policies had become influential in a European conflict and the idea of "International Jewish Power" gained further currency.

Austria had her own "Jewish problem," as will be commented upon later, but this was trivial when compared with the one Serbia represented. The climate in that country had become increasingly uglier. As a result of the Bosnian annexation crisis in 1908 a secret society, the Narodna Odbrana, Defense of the People, was formed. The express goal was to prepare the country for war. The program, published in Belgrade, available on the Internet, states in part:

     The official seal showed in the center a powerful arm holding in its hand an unfurled flag on which -as a coat of arms -there was a skull with crossed bones. By the side of the flag were a knife, a bomb and a phial of poison. Around in a circle, there was an inscription that read, "Unification or Death," and on the base, "The Supreme Central Directorate." The oath of the prospective member was equally romantic:

     The document was dated "May 9, 1911, Belgrade," and the undersigned consisted of 7 military officers as well as 2 civilians. This was the organization which trained, equipped and smuggled Princip and his coconspirators across the border into Bosnia. The events of June 28, 1914 were the outcome.
     Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne, had been inspecting maneuvers the previous day and had paid a courtesy visit to Bosnia's capital. The motor route had been well-publicized and the conspirators were waiting. A bomb was thrown,missed the car of the Archduke but wounded a member of the entourage. Instead of canceling the rest of the tour, Franz Ferdinand insisted on continuing with the planned program and on visiting the injured Lieutenant Colonel. The route was changed; the driver made a mistake, pulled into the original street, noticed the error and stopped the car to put the gears in reverse five feet away from Princip who was waiting with a loaded revolver. The Archduke and his wife were killed instantly. If one wrote this scenario for a novel it would be ridiculed, but truth is indeed sometimes stranger than fiction.  

One may think that Nazism is dead and over with, so why bother? Yes, Hitler is dead, but the forces which caused what I like to call the “Hitler phenomenon” are to some extent still with us and will impact on our lives. The tragedy is that we cannot write it off as “temporary insanity” of a given nation, but must recognize that it was “logical,” as Mister Spock of the original StarTrek series would have said. All one has to do is subscribe to the initial precept, namely, that there are superior and inferior races or nations, and that it is a law of nature for the superior ones to rule; in other words, Darwin’s principle of Survival of the Fittest, applied to politics. Everything else flows automatically and logically. Since the notion appeals to the pride of a given group, it is quite seductive.
     When there is no moral law other than what the state decrees, expediency will rule. You think your country needs more living space; you take it. You need hospital beds and food for the productive population; you kill off the unproductive ones. You don’t want to feed millions of your most hated enemy, so you gas them. Since they are going to die anyway, you might as well learn something beforehand and conduct medical scientific experiments that might be of use to the fighting troops. For instance, finding out how long a person can survive in ice cold water; how to protect pilots when they have to parachute from great heights; how much, if any, seawater one can drink when marooned on the ocean; what vaccines might or might not work against typhoid fever, etc., etc. You are strapped for raw materials, so you shave the heads of people who are condemned to die and use the hair for mattresses. You are short of gold, so why waste the gold crowns from the teeth of the condemned? You need soldiers to replace the killed and wounded; you produce more babies. For the best of the best, i.e. the SS, facilities will be created where they can mate in peace and comfort with the best of German maidenhood and the germ plasm is preserved. It all flows naturally from an official doctrine which proclaims, “The individual is nothing, the nation is everything.” Himmler’s Lebensborn (wellspring of life), had the additional advantage that his SS men didn’t have to go to brothels where they would be exposed to venereal diseases which would impair their fighting qualities. A little vignette from the last days of Berlin might also highlight what I am trying to say. A couple of soldiers had been ordered to let the waters of the Spree river into the subway tubes so that the Russians couldn’t come through. Since the tubes were filled with frightened civilians who would be drowned, one of them objected and said in essence:
     “I can’t do that, I can’t take this responsibility.”
     “What are you talking about?” said the other. “It’s an order, what responsibility?”
     “Before God,” said the first one.
     “Bullshit,” was the reply, “he doesn’t exist anyway.”
     That is the real tragedy and the reason why we are potentially in for more problems of this type. It’s all so terribly logical and the result of the absence of a Divine Moral Code.
     Nazism was the words of Machiavelli, Nietzsche and even Moses, having become flesh within the person of Hitler. To simply label him a paranoid psychopath misses the point. He was an atavism, a throwback not only to the Middle Ages, but to the sands of the deserts of the Sinai, cloaked in modern garb.

Machiavelli provided the political framework for how a ruler should wield and retain total power. Nietzsche lent the moral justification for the party program. Let me just quote a few key sentences and you will understand what I am talking about. In regard to medicine Nietzsche wrote:

     This was the justification for Hitler’s Euthanasia program.
     In regard to moral values Nietzsche raised the question, “What is good?” The answer was, “to be valiant!” He also wrote:

     This was the blueprint for Hitler, including his last orders to totally destroy the German industrial plants when defeat had become inevitable. Western politicians never understood the man. Their mental framework was the “slave morality,” the “Judeo-Christian” heritage, which he had thrown overboard. Most thought, up until 1939 anyway, that he was playing by the commonly established rules. He was not. Had they really read Nietzsche, they would not have dismissed Mein Kampf as lunatic ravings of an immature bully, they would have been forewarned. The entire Nazi program, including the constant repetitions of: ruthless, merciless, inexorable, relentless, hard, tough etc., can all be found in Nietzsche.

The war was truly one of “Weltanschauung” between two different philosophies of how the world should be run. Nevertheless, these two aspects of Hitler’s political creed were shared with Lenin as well as Stalin. Most facets of Nazism were actually just copies from Communism with a German nationalistic flavor. Only when one adds Moses’ claim that the Jews are the Chosen People of God, and interprets it in terms of material benefits rather than spiritual values, does one have the full program and the seeds for catastrophe. There cannot be two chosen people who will inherit this earth, it’s either them or us. The earth, according to Hitler, is like a perpetual trophy (Wanderpokal) that is awarded to the strongest who deserves it the most. He would make sure that it was Germany which would be the recipient and he would beat the Chosen Race with their own weapons. He failed; his opponents were the stronger ones.
     The Jewish people call the first five books of Moses the Torah and that translates into “Teaching or Law”. What did the Law say in regard to warfare? Sections of Deuteronomy 7 and 20 are the most important in this context. For the sake of more modern wording, the following is quoted from the New English Bible:

     Apart from the ten commandments, the above was also the Law. Small wonder that the Israelites were not welcomed with open arms by the indigenous populations they encountered and that the order to destroy everything that is sacred to others had led to profound resistance. The ban on intermarriage and the rather strict dietary ordinances further served to set them apart from the rest of the world.
     Hitler took a page from Moses’ book on how to deal with the “stiffnecked” people. When he and many others had come back from the Great War they found that everything they had believed in and suffered for, honor, country and even God, were now dragged into the mud. The whole country seemed to be dancing around the Golden Calf and Jews were in charge. Remember what Moses did when he came down from the mountain? He ordered a massacre. “Arm yourselves each of you, with his sword. Go through the camp from gate to gate and back again. Each of you kill his brother, his friend his neighbor.” The Levites obeyed and “about three thousand of the people died that day” (Ex. 32:27-29). Hitler would follow the example. The Germans were to be the chosen people now and the country had to be cleansed from top to bottom. It was not Mammon who was to reign supreme, but work by everyone and everybody. No more parasitism from ill-gotten stock market gains or other speculative enterprises. Only what you earned by the sweat of your brow was to be yours. There was to be no more intermarriage which dilutes the racial stock and there was to be “no sodomite” in Germany. Those with physical health, which leads to strength and beauty, would take precedence over sickly bookworms. The SS would be the Levites, and just like them, they were to be of pure blood, physically perfect and absolutely reliable. Their motto was to be, “My Honor is Loyalty!”
     Compare the previously mentioned biblical quotes in regard to conduct of war with excerpts of an order issued by Field Marshal von Reichenau to the troops under his command in October of 1941. The SS and the “Einsatztruppen” had started to murder the Jewish population of the conquered territories and the ordinary soldier was not used to these sights. Therefore, the need was felt to stiffen the army’s backbone. The quote comes from Nazism Vol. II by Noakes, J. and Pridham.

     What happened during the infamous Kristallnacht when the synagogues burned? The SA and other assorted hoodlums just followed Moses’ orders: They pulled down their altars, they broke their sacred pillars, they hacked down their sacred poles and destroyed their idols by fire. The same goes for the book burnings, which involved mainly Jewish or Philosemitic authors. About 3000 years had passed and ancient hatreds reappeared in new uniforms.
     When I wrote these pages originally, the book by Ron Rosenbaum, Hitler Explained, had not yet been published. It deals with the explanation of Hitler’s personality structure by a number of authors. These range from his supposed Jewish grandfather, the beatings by his father, supposed malpractice by the Jewish physician who had treated his mother, the supposed absence of one testicle, an assumed sexual perversion, and Christianity to - what has been called - the “German eliminationist Antisemitism.” Every one of the quoted authors has tried to find the proverbial “smoking gun.” the one aspect which would explain everything. I believe this to be a fruitless endeavor because human behavior is always multifactorial in origin. Nevertheless, I was surprised to read that, unbeknownst to me, the above-stated thesis, that the Israelite religion was an important factor in Hitler’s racism, had also been proposed by George Steiner in his novel The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. Briefly: Hitler had escaped to the jungles of South America, where he was captured by Israeli commandos, but couldn’t be brought back to civilization because he was too old, and the entire rescue party suffered from poisonous insect bites. They, therefore, had to try him on the spot. Speaking in his own defense, Hitler declared that whatever he was and had become, he had learned from the Jews and he merely adopted Aryan superiority for that of the Hebrews. Rosenbaum wrote that Steiner was severely and mercilessly criticized for this view by his Jewish colleagues, but nevertheless it does make sense and, as mentioned above, I had independently reached essentially the same conclusion.
     Finally, one must not underestimate the power the Protocols of the Elders of Zion exerted over Hitler’s mind. Although it had already been established at the time he wrote Mein Kampf that the “protocols” are a forgery, this did not deter him from believing in the essential truthfulness of the material. All the more so, since the political-economic situation he saw in Germany and Russia seemed to conform to the principles enunciated in that document. Cohn’s Warrant for Genocide provides the data on how the “protocols” served as a concrete model for Hitler’s dictatorship. A discussion why this piece of plagiarism enjoys even today some popularity in certain circles is beyond the scope of the present book. But since the essential portions of the “protocols” are based on a fictitious dialogue between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, the thoughts expressed can apply to any “leader” or group of people who enjoy wide ranging power.

Although Hitler knew no fear under fire in the war, he was a coward with a profound inferiority complex in civilian life. Ernst Hanfstängl, who came from a renowned German-American family, had met him during the early years of the party in Munich and had fallen under his rhetorical spell. It was he who had introduced Hitler to high society and had tried to “civilize” him. In 1932 Churchill was in Munich and had expressed the wish to meet with Hitler over dinner. Hanfstängl was delighted at the chance to bring the two of them together but when he informed Hitler he ran into a stone wall. He was simply too afraid to meet somebody of substance he couldn’t shout down. The fascinating details of the meeting which never materialized are described in Hanfstängl’s book.
     When one reads Ponting’s biography of Churchill, one is impressed that in his political opinions he had actually a great deal more in common with Hitler than is generally appreciated. Both felt that destiny had chosen them for transforming the world. Both loved war, both practiced some of their speeches before a mirror, and both were addicted to monologues going into the wee hours of the morning to the distress of their listeners. Both hated Bolshevism and admired Mussolini. Both wanted to preserve the British empire so that the colored races, be they yellow, brown, or black, could be kept in their places. They also were convinced of the necessity for eugenic efforts. By 1910 Churchill had already wanted to breed a better British race by sterilizing the feebleminded. He also advocated in a 1911 speech before the House of Commons, that “as for tramps and wastrels there ought to be labor colonies where they could be sent for considerable periods and made to realise their duty to the state.” This was likewise the goal for Hitler’s concentration camps in the thirties, but for good measure he included political enemies and Jews, who automatically fell into that category.
     In addition, both were vainglorious gamblers, Churchill even in the literal and not only the political sense. His ill-conceived Gallipoli adventure in 1915 was characterized by Lloyd George, the then Prime Minister, as:

While the above-mentioned aspects of Hitler’s ideas can be understood intellectually, there is an additional domain which defies logic. For lack of a better word it might be called demonic in the sense the ancient Greeks used it. His life bears an uncanny semblance to that of Cola Di Rienzi, who lived in Italy in the middle of the fourteenth century. He had been the son of a tavern keeper who had come to the attention of the Church, rose to high honors as tribune of the people, and was hell bent to rid Rome of the graft, corruption and general lawlessness which had permeated the city as a result of the rule of feuding aristocratic circles. He would restore Rome to her former glory and even the German Emperor would have to pay homage. Overreaching himself in this manner, the Church - and with her the people - turned against him and he died at the hands of a mob while the building he stood in was consumed by flames. This is actual recorded history, which can be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica, for instance.
     Wagner had taken the theme and it became his first successful opera, Rienzi. It is no longer performed; only the overture can commonly be heard on classical radio stations or CDs. The reason is not that the music is all that bad but the audience would be repelled by what they would regard as glorification of Hitlerism. Wagner kept fairly close to history in his libretto, except that he had to add a love story between Rienzi’s sister and a son of one of the nobili. He also had Rienzi die with the sister at his side in the flaming Capitol of Rome.
     In his book Adolf Hitler Mein Jugendfreund, Kubizek describes what had happened to the seventeen year old Adolf when the two of them saw the opera for the first time in Linz. In the chapter entitled “The Vision” he wrote:

     Eventually they came down from the mountain, Kubizek went home, while Adolf kept wandering off into the distance. “I want to be alone,” was all he had said. They never spoke about it any more until the summer of ‘39. Hitler had not forgotten his friend Gustl and had sent him some tickets to the Bayreuth festival. During that time he reminded Adolf of that night and found that the latter had also remembered all the details and seemed glad to have his memory verified by another observer. Later they told it to Frau Wagner, whose guests they were and as Kubizek wrote, “Unforgettable has the word remained with which Hitler closed his narration to Frau Wagner. He said with seriousness, ‘In that hour it began.’ ”
     Hitler’s end in the ruins of the Reichskanzlei is often likened to Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. Rienzi is actually more appropriate, with the faithful Eva Braun taking the part of the sister. Just as Kubizek said, I can’t pass judgment either on what had transpired that night, but maybe “there is more under heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Something had happened to young Adolf in that night and whatever it was it goes a long way to explain his repeated references to “providence” which had raised him from nowhere to become master of Germany. It also sheds light on his phrase that he pursues his course with Nachtwandlerischer Sicherheit (somnambulic certainty). He wasn’t really in charge; destiny drove him on. He learned too late that somnambulism is not necessarily a practical or desirable way to handle international politics.
     Was the man insane? Using common parlance, one would be inclined to say yes. In the legal sense of being able to distinguish right from wrong, he was not. In his private life he adhered to bourgeois morality. He treated his secretaries well, stipulated in his will that his sister should receive a small pension, and he did marry Eva Braun to reward her for her fidelity. In the public arena bourgeois morality did not count. If one wanted to pin a psychiatric diagnosis on him, it would be what the French call an “idée fixe.” It was this idée fixe where the Jews come in. They were the modern “nobili” who were exploiting and enslaving the people. He would obsessively adhere to it until the very end.  

Hitler’s policies and the resultant war have displaced most of the surviving European Jews to the Middle East, and, to a considerable extent, the United States. In Palestine they have succeeded in bringing the dream of a Jewish State to fruition, albeit only on one rather than both sides of the Jordan. The precise borders are also still a major problem, not only for Israel, but for the world at large. The conflict between Arabs and Jews has remained unresolved. It can still explode at any time and will inevitably involve us, because we are the guarantors of the safety of the State of Israel. Güdemann’s predictions as to what would happen if the Jews were to become a nation state have been amply fulfilled.
     There was another prophet in 1880 who was concerned about the fate of the Jews. In his essay Morgenröte Nietzsche wrote:

     He went on detailing aspects of the Jewish character and how it had developed, but felt that through intermarriage they would acquire mental nobility and he saw a bright future for them: