Hitler: History in an Hour

Mein Kampf Hitler wrote of his parents: ‘I had honoured my father but loved my mother.’

On 22 April, with news that the Russians were in Berlin, Hitler finally knew that the war was lost. ‘I cannot command anymore,’ he cried, ‘the war is lost. But if you gentlemen think I am going to leave Berlin you are making a very big mistake. I’d rather blow my brains out.’

Although in 1942 Hitler said ‘I am certainly not a brutal man by nature’, he cared little for the individual – the State was everything, and the individual, even a German, was insignificant. ‘If we don’t win then even as we go down we will take half the world with us,’ he said on the eve of war. While Churchill, whom Hitler once called ‘a Jew-besotted, half-American drunkard’, made great efforts to visit the victims of German bombs, Hitler never visited his people during their hour of need, not wanting to be associated with failure. Nor did he visit his wounded soldiers for fear of appearing sentimental

‘This is the miracle of our times, that you have found me among so many millions. And I have found you; that is Germany’s fortune.’

‘A genius is born only once a century and for that reason I cannot leave the fulfilment of these tasks to my successors.’

Power would be achieved through the proper channels.

power had to be won through revolution.

Hitler was not a typical soldier. He did not drink, smoke or seek the company of the local prostitutes, and actively voiced his disgust of these common pursuits. Although respected by his comrades, he seemed uninterested in forming friendships and preferred his own company, reading, sketching, painting watercolours, writing poetry and contemplating