Hitler: on mature reflection, not a bundle of laughs

I often think about how it might have been to get to know some of the larger-than-life figures from history.

There are some I would really like to have met. I can’t help feeling that an evening with Abraham Lincoln would have been as enjoyable as it would have been memorable – that extraordinary intellect, the subtlety of his thought, all laced with acute wit. He may have pushed the powers of his office to the limits of the US Constitution – some would say rather beyond them, for instance when he suspended habeas corpus – but I feel no sense that he was serving some kind of hidden agenda of self-aggrandisement, but that he really was striving for his openly proclaimed aims: preserving the Union and later on, freeing the slaves.

But what about some of the monsters? What about Hitler, say? I’ve always felt that it would be galling to discover that behind the vile public persona there lurked a man of charm and kindness displayed only to his personal entourage. So it was a relief to discover that, unlike Lincoln, he would probably not have been congenial company over a light-hearted dinner.

Another of the figures who did so much to make Europe in the twentieth century the ‘dark continent’, as the historian Mark Mazower called it in an outstanding study, was Stalin. One of his more inspired statements was ‘the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic’. So we can probably learn as much or more about Hitler’s personality from the death of a single woman than from his attempted extermination of 12 million Jews.

The woman in question was Angelika ‘Geli’ Raubal. She was Hitler’s half niece. Her mother became his housekeeper at the end of the 1920s and she moved into Hitler's house. For two years, Hitler kept her in a state of virtual captivity, wanting her always accompanied by one of his acolytes if she was out and, according to some claims, keeping her under lock and key when she was indoors while he was away. Finally, on 19 September 1931, her body was found dead in her room, which was locked from the inside; she had been shot with Hitler’s personal pistol – the one that nearly 14 years later he would turn on himself.

Geli was 18 when she died.

The odd thing was that Hitler never left his pistol at home. All the staff had been given the previous evening off, except for one who was deaf. There was, of course, no autopsy and no proper investigation. There’s also a rumour that she had somehow contrived to have an affair – or a brief fling, which seems more plausible in the circumstances – with one of Hitler’s rivals in the Nazi leadership, Gregor Strasser, and had told him that Hitler had some odd sexual habits and problems of impotence.

Strasser himself was murdered in 1934 in the wake of the Night of the Long Knives that wiped out so many of Hitler’s rivals.

The priest who officiated at Geli’s funeral later told a French newspaper that he had given her a Catholic funeral, from which he suggested it was easy to draw a conclusion concerning the likelihood that she had committed suicide. But that seems of academic interest only: whether she was murdered or was driven to suicide, her death does rather suggest that Hitler’s persona was about as endearing in private as it was in public. Which I suppose is comforting in its way: when I first learned of Geli’s story it shocked me but confirmed the impression I had received from photos of him in a supposedly relaxed setting: uniformed as ever, unbending, ungracious, unappealing.  

So, while I think it would have been fun to spend a few hours in Abe’s company, when it comes to Adolf, I think I’d prefer to say ‘nein, danke’.

Simpering instead of smiling, and an uptight uniform. Where's the appeal?

PS. The rudimentary examination of Geli’s body on 19 September 1931 suggested she had died the day before, which makes it the eightieth anniversary of her death as I write these words. A strange coincidence: I had no intention of marking the occasion any more than anyone else will – I just happened to think of all this because I’m beginning to read one of Ian Kershaw’s books on the Nazi leader – if you’re interested in the subject and don’t know his work, I strongly recommend it.

Getting things right, the English way

There are times when things go exactly right. That doesn’t mean they’re perfect– just that they live up entirely to expectation.

Years and years ago my old friend Alasdhair came to see me in Oxfordshire with his American fiancee, who getting acquainted with this green and pleasant land. We lived near Oxford in those days, and on one occasion met to have a picnic in one of the city's glorious parks. I picked up some rather good things – pate and fine bread and fruit and cheeses and prosciutto and cakes – the ingredients of a picnic to remember. I think I may have got champagne too and, if my memory is letting me down, I’d still rather believe it since champagne fits the occasion far better than any other wine would.

It wasn’t however those ingredients, memorable though they were, that fixed the moment in my memory. It was that just before we met the heavens opened in what wasn’t simply rain but something far more torrential. A veritable monsoon. It was of course July, so you could hardly expect good weather in England, but this was really special. It certainly underlined the fact that England doesn’t have a climate, merely weather.

Fortunately, we found one of the University cricket grounds. These days you can’t get in but then you still could. There was a pavilion on the edge of the ground, an attractive wooden building with a deep terrace at the front. It even had a table and wooden chairs – true luxury. There we sat, completely sheltered, and watched the sheets of rain batter down on the cricket pitch.

Not perfect but exactly right, you see. Perfect would have been blue skies dappled with clouds, green grass with a white sheet on which we would have sat in our shirtsleeves, enjoying  a brilliant picnic in the pleasant warmth of an English summer. Lovely but unmemorable. But picnicking in the rain – now, that was quintessentially English and unforgettable. Particularly next to a cricket ground. And – as we were dry – why would we complain?

This weekend we had a visit from two old friends from Australia, Meredyth and Kenn. This time of course we weren’t anywhere near Oxford but, fortunately, there are places nearby that are just as spectacularly beautiful. One of the finest is Luton Hoo, a fine stately home, now a hotel, set in fabulous grounds part of which have been turned into a golf course. 

On the lawn behind the hotel the owners have thoughtfully laid out two croquet grounds, and even been kind enough to leave a full set of wooden mallets and balls for passers-by to enjoy a game.

Now that gave me another wonderful opportunities to introduce foreigners to somet English culture. Croquet is a game that embodies the essential aspects of the national character: it is gentle, delicate, slow, courteous – and profoundly vicious. You can be going quietly about your business, knocking your ball steadily through one hoop after the other when – suddenly and without provocation – one of the other players knocks your ball with his – or quite often hers – and this provides the opportunity, immediately seized, to knock yours right off the field of play, over to that curious little bit of shrubbery in the distance with a pond in the middle or it.

You might have been winning right up until then, but now suddenly you’re so far out of the game that you might as well start all over again.

What could be better for a couple of Australian friends than to introduce them to this piece of fiendishness? They happen to be from South Australia founded, as they assured me, by free colonists and not populated by convicts (inhabitants chosen, as the old expression has it, by the best judges in England). Even so, I was sure that they must have the same deviousness as all other Australians, inherited from their distant English relatives.

Kenn and Meredyth learning the niceties of English life
Before rubbing my nose in them

They took to it like ducks to water. So well in fact that they forgot rule 1 – let the Englishman win. But despite that deplorable oversight on their part, we all had a great time, contributing to the sense that we had picked up an old friendship after an eleven-year gap as though we'd only had a brief interruption in a long and pleasant conversation.

To make things exactly right, it even rained half way through the game. We played straight on, of course. That’s what the English do. And we dried off soon enough afterwards – the wind was blowing more than hard enough to ensure that.

Trainers for deviance

Overheard on a London bus: one mid-teen schoolgirl  saying to another, ‘do you think it’s weird for a boy to buy his trainers from Topman?’

Topman is, of course, a shop which among other things sells trainers.

Now buying trainers from Topman may show a canny eye for a bargain, or it may be a proof of bad taste. It may simply be an indication of laziness in a boy who never goes further than the shop next door. But weird? How can it be weird?

Enough to get you booted out of your group?

Weird would be buying your trainers from a butcher’s. Weird is sinking a well in the Sahara. Weird is claiming earthquakes are a divine message to politicians and still thinking you’re a suitable candidate for the White House.

What I'd overheard was identification of the boy’s behaviour as deviant from social norms to which the girl felt her group should cling. So she was providing further proof of how powerful the pressure to conform is in childhood.

That pressure is overwhelming in our teenage years. You don’t like the trainers some unfortunate boy has chosen so you shun him. At least that has the merit of focusing on something that doesn’t really matter very much. But then the mentality rolls forward into adulthood when race, creed or sexual orientation become wonderfully fertile ground for identifying forms of behaviour to categorise as deviant.  Attention switches from an insignificant item of clothing such as shoes to a much more potent one, such as a hijab. Those who get their values in these areas wrong by our standards, those who behave ‘weirdly’, are diminished in our eyes. And the crucial, final step is taken by those who decide that any action is legitimate against such diminished people, even if it leads to suffering or death.

Is it completely fanciful to suggest that this idea of weirdness lies behind the 9/11 attacks or the mayhem unleashed on Iraq in response?

So maybe I need to review my own thinking. Perhaps we ought to get back to associating weirdness only with a choice of trainers. At least no-one dies that way.  

An intellectual giant - but why in the White House?

It seems to me that a staggering piece of news emerged from last night’s debate in the US among contenders for the Republication presidential nomination in 2012.

Challenged on his scepticism about climate change, the frontrunner, Texas Governor Rick Perry, mounted a vigorous defence of his position in a minority by pointing out that ‘Galileo got outvoted for a spell.’

That’s electrifying news, isn’t it? I mean, who would have thought that Rick Perry was a man to compare with Galileo on scientific matters? It just leaves me wondering, ‘why is he running for president?’ After all there were seventeen US presidents in the last century. When it comes to scientists of Galileo’s stature, how many were there? Einstein? Schrödinger? Strain a bit and we can probably get to five, but I bet not everyone would have the same names on the list.

One scientific giant

No, to be right up there with Galileo, you have to be pretty special. And if Rick Perry belongs in that rarefied company, why he needs to give up on all this politics nonsense and get stuck into the science. I’d recommend he take a look at some kind of unified theory, spanning Einstein’s relativity and Schrödinger’s quantum mechanics. Unification has been a bit of a Holy Grail for some time now, and it will certainly take an intellect and a vision on a par with Galileo’s to secure it.

... inspired another. Virtually indistinguishable aren't they?

Wouldn’t Perry just put Steven Hawking back in his box if he pulled that one off!

So forget the presidency, Rick, and concentrate on the book that takes us beyond Einstein. That would be a monument truly worthy of you.

And I tell you what: make it happen and I’ll believe you on global warming. That and practically any other subject you care to mention.

In the meantime, just by getting out of politics, you’ll have made a major contribution to humanity.

What's best forgotten down memory lane

Down in the glorious county of Devon at the weekend, to drop in on a reunion of people from Dartngton, scene of my undistinguished school career at the end of the sixties. I stayed some three hours, which represented about a twenty-fourth of the time the event lasted, but that was plenty for me: I find this kind of thing a bit like drinking Aquavit – great at first but then it begins to pall a little.

Actually, with Aquavit if you can get to glass five or six you can generally keep right on, and that’s probably true of school reunions too: once you get far enough into them you keep going. But since the school was in one of the most beautiful parts of England, it would have been a pity not to take advantage of some of the places around. For instance, a pub lunch by the side of a creek, with water in front, wooded slopes before and behind, sun in blue skies overhead, good company at the table.

The school closed in 1987. That means that nobody at a reunion is likely to be under forty, giving the whole experience a slight tinge of pathos. Schools after all are ultimately about children – when only the middle aged or frankly elderly are there to celebrate it, something fundamental seems to be missing.

So it was a bit of a relief to see three girls playing pat-a-cake on the lawn. Hard to imagine a more traditional sight, more symbolic of childish innocence (and what can be more traditional than childish innocence? Even if, as most parents know, it usually just hides a good solid streak of wilfulness and dsobedience).

Ah, the nostalgia: a picture of innocence.
But if they're like mine were, it's just a picture

I enjoyed making contact again with the people I remembered liking, and avoiding the others. However, as countless American films have made clear, one of the major purposes of attending this kind of event is to catch up on missed sexual opportunities, so I was delighted to overhear the following conversation. I’ve changed the names, naturally, to protect the guilty.

‘Elisabeth, isn’t it?’ I had absolutely no memory of the speaker, a man three or four years younger than me. Couldn’t remember Elisabeth either, as it happened, and she hadn’t recognised me, so it was a bit of relief to have our meaningless conversation interrupted.

Elisabeth gave him a bright smile of utter non-recognition. I’m prepared to be charmed, it said, but have no idea who by in this instance.

‘Wonderful to see you!’ went on the man.

Another friendly look and smile.

‘Didn’t you have a sister?’

The smile had frozen a little, the response was less warm.

‘Yes...’

‘Diane, wasn’t it? That was her name?’

‘That’s right, my sister’s Diane.’ The thermometer was dropping fast.

‘A real looker wasn’t she?’ All I could think was ‘You’re in a hole – for God’s sake stop digging.’

‘Yes, she was,’ came the response, with I felt a slight emphasis on the ‘was’, and in a tone that was becoming glacial, ‘and she knew it.’

‘Oh, and is she coming down?’

‘I don’t know. We don’t keep in touch very much.’

‘Really? You know, I used to be totally in love with her.’

I walked away. The sun was still shining outside the marquee, but just where that conversation had taken place, conditions were positively polar.

I can’t remember whether the school was particularly good at teaching us tact and sensitivity. But if it was, one person at least had clearly skipped those classes.

So hard to agree with the Right, however hard I try

It’s difficult finding common ground with the political right. Even when I agree with one of their cardinal principles, I find they don’t agree with it themselves.

The principle is question is the one they refer to as ‘small government’. As I’ve pointed out before, it was most eloquently summarised by a radical of the left, supporter of the revolutions  in America and France, Tom Paine: ‘That government is best that governs least.’

Tom Paine: would have supported the Boston Tea Party,
but probably not the modern variation

I feel the wisdom of this view all the more strongly the closer any of the alleged supporters of ‘small government’ get to power. Michele Bachmann proclaiming to Americans that hurricanes are warnings from God to Obama to reduce the deficit. Rick Perry asserting the right of the United States to launch pre-emptive wars. Yep. If they ever get anywhere near government, I’d like it kept as small as humanly possible.

But do these people actually favour small government themselves? After all, Rick Perry launched his presidential campaign with a prayer meeting. He and Bachmann seem deeply committed to governing with God.

How much bigger can you get than that?

Over this side of the pond, the ‘small government’ lot are in office right now. In the aftermath of the recent street disturbances, David Cameron called for powers to shut down Twitter and Facebook at times of trouble.

One of the more remarkable reactions to the looting was the great cleanup in Clapham the following day. It was organised through Twitter. Had Cameron’s approach been adopted at that time, this highly positive response wouldn’t have been possible.  

Sadly, the momentum seems to be going out of Cameron’s initiative, as it has out of rather a lot of others in the past (selling off Forestry Land, reorganising the NHS, sucking up to Murdoch). Still, he probably thought it was a good idea because of how much better life is in countries where governments can shut down bits of the internet at will. Like China. Or Iran. Or North Korea.

In what sense, though, would it keep government small?

Postscript: a woman’s right to choose and everyone’s right to know

Conservative MP Nadine Dorries and Labour MP Frank Field are pushing a parliamentary measure to force women considering a termination of pregnancy, to get counselling first from an organisation that is not involved in the performance of the abortions themselves.

This would sound sensible if, say, those organisations had some financial interest in maximising the number of abortions they carry out. They are, however, charities with no such incentive. And most of the organisations who might provide the ‘independent’ counselling seem to be aligned with the anti-abortion movement.

But just who are they?

Difficult to tell. Asked to reveal who was backing the campaign for her measure, Dorries wasn’t prepared to say.

Curious, isn’t it, given that the campaign calls itself the ‘Right to Know’.

Weather alert

We may be facing stormy times at work.

Not that things have taken a downturn or anything. On the contrary, we’ve had an extraordinary year so far, to the extent that we’re all rushed off our feet. So it was a relief to hear that we were recruiting new people and, what’s more, some of our colleagues from abroad were coming over to lend us a hand for a while too.

The first to arrive was Irene from the States. She turned up just as the hurricane called after her was ravaging the east coast of her country. Obviously, it would have been in terribly bad taste to make jokes about whistling up a storm or showing the energy of a whirlwind. I’m well known for my restraint in these matters, so you can be sure I resisted the temptation to make such comments. Or at least to make many of them.

Now Katya from Ukraine is about to come over too – and, blow me down (if you’ll excuse the pun), but tropical storm Katia has just been upgraded to a hurricane too.

Katya's heading for London

What are we to make of all this? Michele Bachmann, worthy successor of Sarah Palin in both intellect and ambition, recently described the earthquake and hurricane that afflicted Virginia as a sign from God of his disapproval of the actions of the Washington administration. It seems that the Lord isn’t happy about Obama’s failure to tackle the debt crisis and found no better way of showing his displeasure than to damage a lot of houses, injure a great number of people and leave 24 of them dead, even though none of them had anything much to do with the US debt crisis as far as I can tell.

Bachmann has since assured us she was just joking, but I’ve never really trusted people who have to tell me they’re joking. I find the wit of people far funnier if I can appreciate it without having it pointed out to me. And, in any case, knowing and loving Michele as we do, does anyone believe her?

Anyway, with Irene and Katya due to storm around our offices next week, I’m sure Michele would have some interesting homilies to share with us. If only we could bring ourselves to listen.


Unrelated postscript: someone came knocking at the door today.

‘I’m not a salesman,’ he assured me, which immediately told me he was, though perhaps not a terribly good one.

‘My colleagues are just going around offering people free quotations on work they could have done on their houses.’

Just the quotation was free, you notice, not the work.

Perhaps he really wasn’t a very good salesman. Certainly if the measure of a good salesman is winning the order. This prospect wasn’t buying.