Irrationalist philosophers stirred up Nature’s Soul, Which revealed Itself to them as “World Will”, and Which began to seek Itself a Personification.
Adolf Hitle
r was born on April 20th, 1889, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in a small town near the border with the German Empire. His father was a customs officer by profession and a peasant woman’s “love child” by birth. It is still unknown for certain who his father (Adolf’s grandfather) was. It could well have been his stepfather, Hiedler, his stepfather’s brother, both having a Czech background, or even the Jewish banker Frankenberg’s son. Adolf’s mother was a simple peasant socially and his father’s second niece, genealogically. But not everything in Hitler’s ancestry was so low or obscure. Among his relatives there were such outstanding persons as the Austrian historian Rudolf Koppensteiner, and, most notably, the poet, dramatist and philosopher Robert Hamerling, author of the treatise “The Atomistics of the Will”.
Adolf was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. He was the 4th child in the family; his older siblings had died in infancy. The family had to move from place to place, which was due to his father’s promotion at his job. Eventually, he retired early due to health problems, bought a house, and got engaged in farming.
In 1885, at the age of 6, Adolf started school. At first, he did well. For a couple of years, he attended a Benedictine monastery school, where he would sing in a church choir and help the priest during the service. Then Adolf would think about becoming a priest. In the meantime, he was amazed by a weird ornament that decorated the temple, where the service would be held; that was the swastika. Besides, he read a lot since childhood. He was noted for exuberant imagination, and would try to pour it out on paper, producing numerous drawings and watercolours. Still, not everything was running smoothly in his family. Having failed to endure father’s eternal fault-finding, his growing-up half-brother left home on his own. In 1900, his beloved 6-year-old younger brother died.
His bro
ther’s death shook the 11-year-old Adolf. A yawning breach appeared in his childish, but still fairly settled worldview. “If God exists, – he was reasoning, – how could He allow him to die?” From being a good-natured and sociable child, he turned into a suspicious and rebellious adolescent. Now he would concentrate more and more on painting and dreamed of entering a classical school. But his father stubbornly sought to prepare him for a “real job”. That same year, Adolf was sent to the Realschule in the city of Linz.
A big city failed to carry the young Adolf away by its temptations; his self-discipline and thirst for self-education protected him safely against malign influences. He subscribed to 3 public libraries there, and a couple of new books became his “daily norm”. Among his favourite authors were Goethe and Schiller, Dante and Shakespeare. History books also attracted his interest, in particular, those by Tacitus and Mommsen. Even at the time, Linz was a city with rich musical traditions. There was a theatre there, where Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” was staged as early as in 1862, and the outstanding composer Anton Bruckner lived and worked there until 1868. Certainly, Adolf could not but take notice of these manifestations of human spirit; this is where his ardour for music began.
He did not like it at school. He would not become close friends with his peers, and of all subjects he favoured only history, geography, and drawing. The distance from home to school was about 6 km. And Adolf liked most of all this new feeling of freedom and solitude that would creep over him during those long walks.
In 1903, another misfortune befell the young Adolf – his father suddenly died. His relationship with his father had been far from easy. And yet, having seen his father lying in the coffin, he could not hold back the sobs. Mother begged him not to give up school. Adolf yielded to her pleas, but his academic performance and attendance became thoroughly bad. In his school leaving certificate issued in 1905, there were excellent marks only in drawing and physical training, the rest being satisfactories.
But as regards self-education, he made a good progress in it. His reading horizon widened considerably. He had familiarized himself with a large array of antique literature and philosophy, including the writings of such authors as Homer and Sophocles, Aristotle and Plato, Ovid and Cicero. The fate of Christianity aroused special interest in him. To that end, he studied works of Julian the Apostate, Catholic theologians, and the church reformer Martin Luther. Besides, he continued to perfect himself in painting. Also, he wrote poems, novels, and even plays.
Adolf w
as a shy and reticent youth. But, the way it should be at this age, he yearned for communication and dreamed of friendship. And, at this point, fortune met him halfway. This happened at the local opera theatre, where “The Meistersingers” were on. The house was full, so that even standing rooms were in short supply. While competing for one of such rooms, Adolf suddenly got to know a young musician named August Kubizek. Thereafter, they would go to the theatre together and spend hours and hours talking heart to heart. It was Adolf, who would speak, though. When elaborating on his thoughts, he looked so different, as if possessed, that his friend would sometimes feel scared. Still, they influenced each other mutually. Adolf learned to play the piano and even had a stab at composing music and writing opera librettos. In those days, R. Wagner’s operas increasingly captivated him. In them, a magnificent, new, although fairy-tale world opened up before him. It would take him some time to come to his senses after such performances. “Is it really just a fairy tale?” – he would think to himself. Maybe, this is where a crazy dream crept into his soul: to make this fairy tale come true.
In 1907, his mother died. That same year, Adolf and August went to Vienna: the former, aiming to join the Academy of Fine Arts, while the latter, attempting to enter the Conservatoire. Adolf failed the academy entrance exam. The next year, he repeated the attempt, but failed again. Adolf managed to have an audience with the rector, but the latter advised him to try his luck in architecture (really, Hitler was a more successful painter of urban landscapes than human forms). But what was to be done? He did not want to return to Linz and decided to stay in an inhospitable, but still magnetic Austrian capital. His friend, however, proved luckier: he entered the Conservatoire and subsequently became a conductor.
Adolf would aimlessly wander down the Vienna streets, examining the surrounding houses and peering into the faces of passers-by. By then, the city had already been actively involved in capitalist development, with plants and factories fuming now here now there, with crowds of the unemployed wandering around, and the homeless sleeping in the ditches. Even those, who had managed to get lodging, huddled together in terrible conditions. Adolf’s heart was breaking in sympathy for his fellow countrymen. “Are they really the descendants of Wotan? Are they really the successors of Goethe and Schiller, Bach and Beethoven, Fichte and Hegel?” – he would ask himself.
At the same time, he would often encounter some strange bearded men wearing flock-coats, who looked like they were rather well-off. “Who are they?” – he asked. “Jews” was the answer. The inquisitive youth rushed right away to the nearest library and requested the relevant statistics. It turned out that Vienna’s Jewish population had been growing geometrically over the last decades. Notably, representatives of the “chosen people” would not replenish the ranks of the jobless or homeless. By contrast, they would secure themselves lucrative positions in such spheres as entrepreneurship, education, law, medicine, and mass media. “So, that’s where the cause of the titular nation’s depressed state may lie!” – twigged the impressible Adolf.
Liberalism, pushed into the historical arena by the French Revolution, failed to become a universal tool for explaining and solving many social issues. The subsequent events, in particular, the shooting down of demonstrating workers in 1848 in Paris showed this ideology to be opposed by the other, no less powerful Weltanschauung, namely, Communism. But Communism, in turn, failed to properly heed such an important factor of social life as ethnic or racial identity, which commonly made itself felt as the “voice of blood and soil,” and which was impossible to suppress. This sensible sphere will never settle down until it achieves its complete expression notably in Nazism. Liberalism, as well as Communism and Nazism are rooted in the deification of Nature’s three integral parts (Mind, Body, and Soul, respectively). Therefore, each of Them will establish Itself necessarily in the form of a religious cult.
Hitler lived in Vienna until 1913, making both ends meet by casual earnings. Gradually, his financial standing improved. He succeeded as an artist, and he waived his orphan’s benefit in favour of his sister. His pictures (those were largely painting replicas done from old postcards and prints featuring Vienna’s historic houses), and also advertising banners were selling well. Also, he worked as a writer. Besides, he kept on engaging in self-education, in particular, mastering the English and French languages.
In 1913, Hitler left Austria-Hungary and settled in Munich, the capital city of the Kingdom of Bavaria, part of the German Empire. There, he rented a flat and made a living from painting.
The news of the outbreak of the 1st World War was received by the 24-year-old Hitler with some relief, nearly with joy. The war appeared to him as frightening, but still natural means of solving many problems that tormented him. He joined the German army without a second thought, and from 1914 on took part in actions.
During the war, Hitler fought on the Western front, where the German troops were countered by British, Belgian, and French forces. He proved to be a brave soldier, received a number of decorations, and was given the rank of corporal, which entitled him to act as junior commander. He was wounded several times. As a result of one of those injuries, he lost his vision. One should imagine the state of complete despair that he, as an artist, found himself in at that moment. Luckily, his blindness turned out to be temporary. Anyway, painting never became his main profession.
In the war, too, Hitler went on with his self-education. Interest in philosophy awoken in him in his youth, was now hinging around one and the same author, namely, Schopenhauer. Hitler would always have with him the philosopher’s book “The World as Will and Representation”. During lulls in the fighting, he would read, read again, and sometimes even learn by heart whole paragraphs. Eventually, the Essence of Being revealed Itself to him as the Cosmic Will, a single pretersensual Arche of Nature, Which manifested Itself in an infinite variety of ways. He started to feel an instinctive kinship with this primordial Will, and also an irresistible yearning to become Its executor.
(Interestingly, during the First World War, many German soldiers would carry in their haversacks, along with the Bible, F. Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”. Such seemingly unimportant details, in reality, lay bare the true, philosophical and religious background of whatever is going on in this world.)
Hitler was dealt yet another blow after the German “November Revolution” of 1918, followed by the overthrow of the Kaiser, and the capitulation of Germany. He designated those events by one word: “treachery”. All hardships and horrors of war that he and his fellow soldiers had gone through turned into nothing.
The Weimar Republic that arose from the ruins of the “Second Reich” was being built on the principles of liberalism bequeathed by Napoleon. The threat of Communism seemed to have been diverted towards Russia. But the unprecedented humiliation, that Germany had undergone as a result of the First World War and that had been enshrined in the Treaty of Versailles, laid a grave burden on the country, from which there was no relief in sight.
After the war, Hitler continued his army service. In 1919, his life took a fateful turn. In the wake of a short-lived victory of communism in a “separately taken” Germany in the form of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, a necessity arose to ideologically defend Germany against the communist threat. The command sent Hitler to a training course for political education. Having finished it, he began to deliver lectures to the soldiers returning from the war. In doing so, Hitler displayed outstanding oratorical capabilities – this is where his vast stores of erudition came in handy. Soon he was appointed Chief Political Educator of the entire German army.
At about that time, Hitler’s no less fateful acquaintance took place with a poet, dramatist, journalist, and Schopenhauer’s and Nietzsche’s fan, Dietrich Eckart. The latter taught his new friend some lessons to perfect his oratorical skills and “infected” him with his philosophical and religious teaching, which can be outlined as follows.
“At the foundation of mankind lies the “Aryan Race” (meaning Northern European Caucasians, or the so called “Nordic race”), represented by tall, fair-haired and blue-eyed people having an athletic build. However, as a result of natural disasters, wars, and also intrigues perpetrated by Jews and other unworthy nations, the basic race partly became degraded, and partly dispersed. To the greatest extent, this race has been preserved in Germans. Therefore, the main task now is to gather up the German people, to purify them from alien admixtures, and, provide them with a decent “living space” – at the expense of lands freed both from the primarily vicious nations (e. g. Jews and Gypsies) and the hopelessly degraded Aryans (e. g. the Russians) ”.
Eckart’s ideas fell on good soil. One can even say that they proved to be nothing but a systematic exposition of Hitler’s own thoughts. Moreover, Eckart suggested to Hitler the idea of the coming Messiah, Who was destined to take the lead on the great work of gathering together, purification, and propagation of the “Aryan Race”.
What was to be done in such circumstances? This question had once been answered: the task was to set up the relevant political party. It turned out that “such a party” already existed in Germany at the time, and it was called “The German Workers’ Party”. And it came to pass that the army command instructed Hitler to speak at one of its meetings. The main idea of his speech was the need to unite all German lands. In a discussion that ensued Hitler gained a convincing victory over the supporters of Bavaria’s independence. After the meeting, he was offered to join the party. And he accepted the offer eagerly. Thus, the political assent of the genius of Nazism-to-be started. The World Soul, having once revealed Itself as the “Will to Live”, was now showing an even more pronounced expression, as the “Will to Power”.
It did not befit Hitler to play supporting roles. Shortly, he headed the party and made it a tool for achieving his ideals. So far, it numbered as little as 55 members, him including. But this fact was not embarrassing for Hitler. Most importantly, there was an idea, and there was determination to carry it through to the end.
Hitler embarked on the necessary organizational and propaganda work, in which he had become skilled enough by then. More and more massive events would be arranged, attended by thousands of people. An all German Nazi newspaper was started, to no small degree thanks to the financial support from the owners of the best at the time piano factory, Bechstein. The party programme was formulated. Proceeding from the right of peoples and nations to self-determination, a course was proclaimed towards creating a mono-ethnic, socially-oriented German state, by contrast to liberal and communist models. Finally, the name of the party was made more accurate; now it was called “The National Socialist German Workers’ Party” (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei).
In 1920, Hitler got out of the military and devoted himself wholly to the political activity. His popularity grew. His inflammatory speeches would drive the public into ecstasies. In 1923, in Munich, the 1st NSGWP congress was held. That same year, the impatient Hitler, with the help of the party’s paramilitary units, attempted to seize power in Bavaria. But the police acted efficiently, and the putsch was suppressed. Hitler and his closest followers were arrested, and they faced treason charges.
However, Hitler spent in prison as little as a few months, and the conditions of his incarceration were even much better than those Lenin had earlier had while in a Russian prison. For all that, the political regime in the “treacherous” Weimar Republic, as well as in the “rotten” tsarist Russia was, after all, not as cannibalistic, as the one their former prisoners would establish there.
Having availed himself of unexpected leisure, Hitler wrote his book “My Struggle”, where elements of an autobiography were combined with stating the main ideas of National Socialism, or Nazism. (Incidentally, he did not write his book but dictated it; now that he was surrounded by his comrades who recognized him as their leader, he could well afford it.) Hitler’s philosophical and religious beliefs can be outlined as follows.
In the foundation of Nature there lies “Vital Force”, or “Will”, Which is incomprehensible to reason, Which is personified as the God Wotan and Which manifests Itself in humankind as the “Aryan Race”. Human history is essentially nothing else but “racial struggle”. More specifically: the primeval “Aryan” race makes Its way through war against “defective” races, which also strive for power. The racial struggle reaches its climax in a standoff between the German and the Jewish nations. The cunningness of the latter is that it often comes out under the guise of someone else, uses others to achieve its objectives, and gains its victories outside the battlefield. Nowadays, in order to corrupt and enslave the Aryan people, they use the slogans of “liberalism” or “communism” as a cover. Russia represents the most horrible example in this respect, where a handful of Jewish literary men and stock-exchange gangsters have managed to assert their dictatorship over the great nation. Thus, the point now is to destroy the actually existing Jewish state and construct a new, true, Aryan one. In doing so, the dead mechanism of the old state must be replaced by a living organism on the basis of the “herd instinct” which arises, when everyone becomes of one blood.
So, Germany was inevitably falling into the arms of Nazism – just the way France earlier had become the cradle of liberal ideology, while communism turned out to be Russia’s fortune. Now the German people came out as “chosen”, while others had to squeeze themselves up. Jews, who had lived in Germany longest and had even borrowed from the Germans their language, were going to suffer most. Just for the record: they have given the world Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul, Philo of Alexandria, and many others, whom all mankind should be thankful to. Jews are an integral part of European and World culture, and their participation both in liberal and communist movement is quite explainable. Their influence on other peoples’ culture can be both “corrupting” and “creative” just as well – it depends on how you look at it. Certainly, there are many scoundrels among Jews (just as among any other peoples), and Jewish Nazism would have been no better, than German and any other.
However, Hitler did not heed the arguments of Reason, neither was he convinced by the practice of class struggle. He had his own mission. And he was determined to accomplish it.
On his release from prison, Hitler engaged in the restoration of the party, which in his absence underwent “disorder and confusion”. He succeeded in securing support for the National Socialist Movement from various social circles, first of all, from industrialists and the military. Organizational work was conducted among youth; in 1926, the Hitlerjugend was set up. In 1930 and 1932, the NSGWP scored big gains in parliamentary elections. Then Hitler decided to run for president of the Weimar Republic. He would fly on board a plane to his pre-election rallies. He would be accompanied during his election tours by an eminent opera tenor, Paul Devrient, who protected his mentee’s vocal chords from overstraining and helped him maintain the “image of the Leader”.
In the 1932 presidential election, Hitler ranked second. The next year, however, he was appointed Chancellor (Prime Minister) of the Weimar Republic. That same year, the notorious fire occurred in German’s parliament building. Hitler’s government demanded from the president emergency powers, and such powers were acquired. Opposition political parties were banned, newspapers closed, trade unions disbanded. The new regime’s opponents would be extrajudicially arrested, sent to prisons and concentration camps. Much attention was given to the purity of the party ranks. Some fellow party members accused Hitler of “bourgeoisness” and demanded “more socialism”. The “left-wing deviators” entrenched themselves in the leadership of the party’s paramilitary units. To prevent a dangerous split in the party, they were accused of masterminding a plot and executed.
In 1934, after the German president’s death, Hitler, according to the results of a nation-wide vote, became the sole head of state. Methodical work started aiming to turn Germany into a “single organism”. All people, aged 6 years and older, were getting involved in “voluntary-compulsory” organizations under the slogan “one people, one country, one leader”. In this vein, various cultural, sports, and other public events would regularly be held. Industrialists and qualified workers were heavily taxed, while unskilled labour of the “common people” was encouraged. Pensioners and veterans enjoyed decent benefits. A lot of new jobs were created, largely in road construction and the military industry. 30-percent unemployment was eliminated, full employment having been reached in many sectors. The shops abounded with cheap products. Germany denounced the Treaty of Versailles’ military provisions and embarked on restoring its armed forces. At the same time, Germany’s peacefulness was being emphasized in every possible way, and the image of Germany as a “country of peace and labour” was being cultivated. As for the Jews, they were so far urged to leave the country amicably.
Yet, at the background of all those events there lay the assertion of the religious cult of Hitler as the incarnation of the World Soul interpreted as the World Will. Not only the “masses”, but his entourage would recognize him, at least, as a superman, and, ultimately, as God. For the majority, he was the personification of all the German people, of honour and freedom, of truth and justice. Nearly every German would imbibe the image of Hitler with his mother’s milk and was ready to carry it with him till his dying day. Besides, it was exactly “Will” that became Hitler’s principal feature. It helped him win any debate, it enabled him inspire and rivet people’s attention, so that they voluntarily followed him. He would be called the “weapon of the Divine Will”. And the most well-known documentary about Hitler was titled “Triumph of the Will”.
To perpetuate the above cult, it only remained to replace The Bible with Hitler’s book “My fight” and replace Christian crosses in churches with swastika – it was suggested by one of the leading ideologists and practitioners of Nazism, Alfred Rosenberg (incidentally, it was he who put forward the idea of the physical destruction of Jews, whereas Hitler only meant their resettlement, in particular, to the “promised land”).
The 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin, became the climax of the peaceful development of Nazism. German athletes won the most medals, while foreign ones were shown unprecedented hospitality. Newspapers wrote about the Germany’s “return to the bosom of nations”. Even those, who had initially wanted to boycott the games, did not regret for having taken part in them: they hoped they had managed to make Germany “more humane”. But they were mistaken. There is no room for Human as Such neither under the “cult of Reason”, nor under the “cult of Matter”, and, to no lesser degree, under the ”cult of Will. ” Germany was already preparing for the war against “Judeo-Liberalism” and “Judeo-Bolshevism”, and for the widening of its “living space” both in the West and in the East.
In 1938, the external expansion of Nazism began. Firstly, Austria was annexed to Germany, then Czechoslovakia. Inside the country, the respective activities were conducted, too. Jews were now forcibly deported from Germany. As a “sign of protest”, a German diplomat was killed in Paris. Then a wave of pogroms rolled throughout the country. The remaining Jews, under the pretext of their protection from the “people’s wrath”, were sent to ghettos and concentration camps.
In 1939, Hitler summarized in one of his speeches the development of Nazism in Germany. In particular, he said the following. “I’ve overcome chaos in Germany, restored order, and ensured an unprecedented growth of production in all the branches of our national economy… I’ve manages to get 7 million unemployed people, whose fate had worried us so much, returned to beneficial labour… I’ve not only united the German nation politically, but I’ve armed it militarily and attempted to annul, page after page, that treaty, which… envisaged most mean and forcible measures that had ever been applied against peoples and individuals. I’ve annexed to the Reich the provinces taken away from us in 1919, I’ve returned home millions of Germans who were separated from us and deeply unhappy, I’ve restored a millennium-long historical unity of the German living space, and I’ve… made every effort to do all this without bloodshed and without bringing the tribulations of war to my people or other peoples”.
Germany’s attack on Poland in the same year marked the beginning of the Second World War. Only France and Great Britain came out against Germany at the time. This upset Hitler a little, since he counted very much on the alliance with the descendants of the Saxons by virtue of “racial kinship”. As for France, it was occupied in 1940 along with other Western European countries. In early 1941, Greece and Yugoslavia fell. Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria sided with Germany. Thus, the “living space” for the Germans in the West was secured. There remained one thing: to “Germanize” the annexed population. But that was rather a “technical issue”. Now one had to figure out what was there in the East.
In the meantime, Russia was spreading out in the East – a strange, extravagantly expanded, half-Asian state, once founded by the Germanic tribe of Rosses and governed by the Varangians for some time. Nowadays, however, despite giving itself airs, the country lacks any trace of its former grandeur. The “Judeo-Bolsheviks” have eradicated the flower of the nation and are currently engaged in infighting. The majority of the people are still peasants: they hate the established political regime and resist the “kolkhozes” imposed on them in every possible way. In the course of the latest purges, the army has been beheaded and now finds itself in the condition of chronic “reorganization” and “modernization”. In the western provinces, the “Sovietization” of the half of Poland ceded to Russia is under way, which causes mass discontent among the population. Their leader is sure that Germany will not venture to attack Russia until it sorts things out with Britain. The German army has by now gained extensive combat experience. Nearly the entire Europe’s industry and human reserves are working for Germany. Besides, Japan has come out as German’s ally, and it is sure to bolster up in case of need from the “other side”. Thus, the situation is quite favourable. The only confusing things are Russia’s vast expanses and frosts. Well, we’ll just start earlier and make short work of it, God willing.
Such was roughly Hitler’s train of thought before invading the USSR. All the advantages seemed to be on his side. And yet, he was hesitating. Something disquieted him. Suddenly, he remembered Bismarck’s warning that “one could not defeat the Russians”. Secretly, Hitler time and again played a gramophone record of Mussorgsky’s tsar Boris aria performed by Chaliapin, and each time some trepidation would come over him, which he had never felt even when listening to Wagner’s operas. At last, he realized what had been worrying him: it was the enigmatic “Russian Soul”, of Which he had heard on repeated occasions, but would attach no special importance. Now It again reminded him of Its existence. But enough of this! What is this childish terror? Why should I, the Incarnation of the primordial World Soul, one with my foundational, Nordic people, fear some degenerate nation, some “mythical “Russian Soul?” Hitler resolutely brushed his doubts away. Still he could not get rid of the feeling that a war with Russia was some kind of experimentum crucis, which was due to prove (or refute?) the rightness of his cause.
Anyway, the invasion of Russia was being delayed… Hitler would account it for by the necessity to finalize military operations in the Balkans. At last, the date was fixed as June 22nd, 1941.
At first, all seemed to be going according to plan, more or less. Soviet troops were largely caught off guard and put to a disorderly retreat. They would leave behind heaps of arms and materiel, which they had often had no time to use. Those taken captive numbered in the hundreds of thousands. In September, the “mother of Russian cities” Kiev was captured, a siege of Leningrad began, and the German forces were advancing on Russia’s capital city, Moscow.
And yet, something went differently. The advance of German troops was really swift, but not as swift as planned. The resistance the Germans ran into in Russia was “not quite” the same they had used to in Europe, and seizure of each new locality took up “a bit” more time than calculated. All these minor delays, in the aggregate, resulted in the Germans’ failure to capture the whole of European Russia before winter set in. There was already the month of November outside, but Moscow still remained impregnable. In December, the Soviet troops launched a counter-offensive and threw the enemy off the city. Certainly, it was not yet a loss for the Germans. However, they would have to spend winter here, in Russia’s snow-covered vast expanses, under the persistent fire, with the temperature reaching in some places as low as minus 50 degrees Celsius that year. Such had not been the case with Europe, either.
A murmur could already be heard in the German army headquarters: why not draw the troops further west in order to avoid a complete defeat? At this critical moment, Hitler assumed command of land forces. His decision, again, reversed the course of the war: the nearly commenced counter-offensive of the Soviet troops was halted. One Germany’s leading commanders would subsequently reminisce: “I have never admired Hitler so much as I did in the winter of 1941-1942, when he alone redressed the shaken Eastern Front, and when his will and resolve was imparted to everyone, including the soldiers fighting on the frontline”.
Encouraged by this relative success, Hitler came up with a new plan: to bypass Moscow to the south and move through the Ukraine towards Caucasus. Thereby, Russia would be cut off from fertile lands and oil deposits. Gesagt, getan (no sooner said than done). The bulk of the German armed forces were thrown into combat to achieve the objective. The offensive, again, was swift. In August 1942, the Germans approached the Volga River, while a Nazi flag was hoisted on Caucasus’ (and Europe’s) highest mountain, Elbrus. Never before had Germany controlled such a huge territory. Now it stretched from Europe’s northernmost spot (in Norway) to North Africa, and from Brittany to North Caucasus. Hitler’s Headquarters was now situated in the Ukraine, near the city of Vinnytsia.
Thus, the World Soul heralded Its existence quite tangibly: It is no “fiction”, no “nothingness”, but a relatively independent part of a triune Nation. Being also an intermediate “Image of God”, It strives for personal embodiment. Earlier, It made a claim about Itself in Schelling’s philosophy, then, closer to topic, with Schopenhauer, and, already quite unequivocally, with Nietzsche. After such a serious “indoctrination”, It, in terms of psychology (which is rather relevant in this case), took shape in the “collective unconscious” of the Caucasian race and, finally, achieved incarnation proper. Certainly, all this was accompanied by the assertion of a respective religious cult, fraught with sizable sacrifices, befitting to a (pagan) Deity. However, since this Image was not final, It, having manifested Itself in full, started to display Its “historical limitedness”. In Hitler’s case, the Stalingrad Battle appeared to be such a turning point. That was the decline of the Will.
In the meantime, bitter house-to-house fighting was already going on in Stalingrad. Then something unexpected happened: the roles of the sides suddenly reversed. Whereas the Germans were desperately trying to hold the captured territory, the Soviets, having brought tanks into play, rushed into the enemy’s rear, forming numerous “pockets”, which, eventually, fused into a single huge “pocket”, in which dozens of German divisions found themselves stuck. All the attempts by the Germans to break out of the encirclement proved a failure, and by February 1943 the “pocket” was completely eliminated by the Red Army.
Someone has said that “near Stalingrad, two Hegelian schools locked in mortal combat”. True, all that goes on in this world, the more so, significant historic events have a philosophical-and-religious underlying reason. Except that in this particular case, it would be more correct to characterize these schools as not “Hegelian”, but rather “Schellingian”. For it was exactly in Schelling’s philosophy that the Origin of Nature was split into 3 parts, namely, Mind, Body, and Soul. Mind appeared to be the source of Liberalism, Body found continuation in Communism, while Nazism fell to Soul’s lot. But what is most important here, it was not Communism that won near Stalingrad. It was some unknown, new Force, Which Schelling had failed to discover, but Which did exist, and Which could not but show.
The German troops’ retreat was long and painful. The heightened thoroughness of decision taking did not protect them from getting into new “pockets”. Neither Turkey, nor Japan ever dared to join the war on the side of Germany, while a guerilla movement was mounting on the Nazi-occupied territory of the USSR, and the Resistance Movement was gaining strength in Western Europe. Now Hitler had no time to reflect on his “mission” – he was altogether absorbed in operational commanding, which, again, caused growing discontent among the top brass. Becoming more frequent were plots against Hitler and assassination attempts on him; as a result of one of them he was injured. But nothing could change the predestined course of events: the World Will had to exhaust Itself in full. And in Its agony It did not spare anyone, above all, the bearers of the primeval “Aryan blood” themselves.
Now, the final hour came. Hitler shook hands with his survived comrades and bade farewell to the service staff. One of the nurses broke into hysterical tears screaming out something about the “everybody’s devotion”, the “coming victory”, etc. But Hitler interrupted her by saying: “One has to accept one’s fate the way it befits man”. He slowly turned round and walked off to his private rooms of the bunker complex situated beneath the perishing Berlin. Soon a shot rang out… The earthly path of this bundle of the World Will was finished.
Thus, the Cosmic Soul manifested Itself in all Its grandeur and in all Its squalor. Earlier, Nature’s Mind (the French Revolution), then, Its Body (the Russian Revolution) had shown to the full. There had also been an attempt to incarnate Nature’s “Creative Force” by Alexander Scriabin, which had passed off almost unnoticed. What other incarnation attempts do the coming days hold for us?
PS. Friendship between Hitler and Kubizek had a continuation. The 1st World War separated them. Kubizek never became a professional musician. Having returned from the frontline, he got a job as a civil servant in one of Austria’s cities. One day he saw a picture of Hitler in a newspaper and from then on he started to follow his friend’s ascension to the political Olympus. In 1933, when Hitler was appointed as head of government of the Weimar Republic, Kubizek decided to “check in” by sending him his greetings. Hitler responded saying he would be happy to restore their friendship, although his busy schedule made it impossible for them to see each other often. It was not until 1938, when Hitler was visiting his beloved city of Linz, that they met again. At the reunion Adolf offered August to fix him up with a position of music director, but Kubizek modestly declined the offer. Still, he asked Adolf to financially support his sons, who were studying at the Anton Bruckner Private University for Music, Drama, and Dance. Thereafter, Hitler would invite Kubizek a couple of times to jointly attend the Richard Wagner festival in Bayreuth. After Germany’s crushing defeat in the battle of Stalingrad, the apolitical Kibizek joined the NSGWP as a token of faithfulness to his friend. Their last contact occurred in 1944, when Hitler sent a food parcel for the 80th birthday anniversary of Kubizek’s mother. In 1945, Kubizek was arrested by the American occupation forces and placed in a concentration camp, where he spent nearly 2 years. Hitler’s friend died in 1956.
PPS. Kubizek was not the only one to have suffered from the friendship with Hitler. Among those, there also was the Führer’s closest associate, Rudolf Hess, whose friendship with Hitler was not just of a human, but, rather, of “metaphysical” nature. Having heard plenty of Hitler’s preaching about the “Aryan” origin of the Anglo-Saxons, he attempted to put an end to a “fratricidal” war of Brits against Germans. In May, 1941, he, at his own risk, took a plane and landed right in the den of the enemy. Certainly, he was interned. Nevertheless, he managed to meet a number of influential representatives of the British elite, and, apparently, not quite in vain. After the war, the Nuremberg tribunal sentenced him to life in prison. In 1987, at the age of 93, pending a possible pardon, Hess was found dead in the prison courtyard.
In 1872, the first book by Nietzsche came out named “The birth of tragedy from the spirit of music”. In it, the idea is being advanced that the world is underlain by a certain impetuous primordial Force, the “Might of Life”, personified by the ancient Greek god Dionysus. As soon as man appears, he tries to escape from this unchecked orgy by inventing him a fairy-tale, a harmonious outside world. In this way, the second
Principle of the World is formed, which is personified by another ancient Greek god, Apollo. Nietzsche compares the first, “natural” Principle, to intoxication, and the second, “artificial” Principle, to a “dream”. In the end, Nietzsche’s “true man” appears as a “bearded satyr jubilating in front of the sacred image of Dionysus”.
Об Истине / On Truth 