I ordered a book from the Folio Society called “The Meaning of Hitler”. Since I have very minimal knowledge on Hitler, I thought it would be a good read so that I could know more about this atrocious and powerful man of history and what it all means. I started reading this book yesterday, and meant to post on it yesterday, but I had a dance competition and then my nephew’s birthday party and I didn’t get home till after midnight and unfortunately had to be up at 6, which equaled to about 5 hours of sleep by the time I got into bed.
Anyway, I have only read 18 pages into the book, and it is quite a startling but pleasant read as it is written quite well. The first thing I found startling: Hitler was an artist. The book shows a black and white picture of one of his paintings. He actually wasn’t that bad at it. Much better than I could ever be. But that may be his only positive trait at all. The second thing I found startling: Hitler was a pathetic soul.
The extent of my knowledge of Hitler before this book was: he was evil, had a Jewish mother, and was a great leader. Now that I am actually really learning about him and not just hearing people’s opinions, I am finding that it is only the first one that is true. Hitler was not immediately related to any Jews, and he certainly wasn’t a great leader. In fact, it was only circumstance and his ability to seemingly hypnotize people that allowed him to float into the position that he did, when he had no real leadership qualities.
On page 14 of this book it says “Hitler’s ability to transform rallies of the most varied individuals – the bigger and the more motley the better – into a homogeneous pliable mass, to put that mass first into a kind of trance and then to give it something like a collective orgasm, is well known.” My grandfather would attest to this hypnotizing ability. Strangely enough, however, it had nothing to do with his public speaking abilities. See here:
“It was based no so much on his skill as a speaker – Hitler’s speeches got going slowly and hesitantly, they had little logical structure and at time barely a clear content; moreover, they were delivered in a hoarse, rough guttural voice – as on a hypnotic ability, the ability of a concentrated willpower to gain control of a collective subconscious wherever it made itself available and at any time.”
I find this completely fascinating that a man so useless such as he, with minimal education (and with bad grades at that), never so much as a career or love life, who was despised and called “The Crank” because of his hateful and ridiculous philosophies, and poor public speaking techniques could get an entire country enthralled at his feet. I must keep reading to unravel the mystery.
Today’s little tidbit is something I somewhat knew but really confirmed today.
I got up after 5 hours of sleep (when I usually need a bare minimum of 8), went and volunteered on a movie set for 9 hours (I asked to go home early because I was positively brain dead and was supposed to go vaulting at 7PM), tried to go to sleep but I can’t nap, ended up missing vaulting and became unimaginably cranky, even for me. I don’t know how I am going to sleep tonight, as I am still terribly overtired. Oh well. Lesson learned: don’t sleep too little before a 13+ hour-long day.
Next goal: hold the handstand consistently every time I attempt it.
) and then did a forehead slap because it’s just so obvious. I couldn’t think of the K as “known” in my head because the sounds don’t always translate as spelling (since when does a K say “n”?).
