Painters War

Painters' War

All week sombre-faced Germans filed past the huge new building that Adolf Hitler built as a symbol of Greater Germany's might. It was a housepainter's dream of a Reichschancellery, nearly a quarter-mile long, with marble chambers and vast, tapestry-hung halls and an immense study in which a man might feel alone with his destiny. For the seven most momentous days of Europe's modern history Adolph Hitler did not leave this building.

Alone in spirit, the man whose word meant peace or war pondered his decision. He slept little, ate little, spoke little. He rose promptly at seven o'clock each morning, put on his brown uniform, breakfasted on fruit, zwieback and a glass of milk. Throughout the day he conferred endlessly, stopping for 20-minute meals of vegetables, bread-&-butter and his special 1% beer. For half an hour in the morning and again in the afternoon, he strolled through the Chancellery gardens, usually with Goering, Hess or von Ribbentrop. Until far into the night he talked with these closest of his confidants, leaving them for bed at four or five in the morning. Whenever a decision was needed, he went off to brood alone.

His nerves grew taut. By Wednesday night, when he gave Sir Nevile Henderson his demands for a Polish settlement, he was not able long to endure the presence of others; for hours no one could see him. Word went out to foreign envoys that his patience was exhausted. Haste, haste was the demand behind all his demands. A Polish negotiator must hasten to Berlin. Russia must make haste with its military mission. Danzig must hasten home to the Reich. Adolf Hitler could not wait much longer.

Thursday night the strange man whom no one understood sat alone in his study, a portrait of Bismarck looking down at him from the opposite wall. Outside, his lieutenants waited. Neither Goering nor Hess knew what Hitler was going to do. Berlin grew sleepy, went to bed. Before the Chancellery two stiff sentries stood mute. The night wore on; milk wagons began to rattle through the streets. Through the long French windows leading from the study into the Chancellery garden blew an early morning breeze. Adolf Hitler picked up a pen. At 5:11 o'clock in the morning of Sept. 1 Germany was at war.

Later that morning, worn and harried, he stood before the Reichstag. He wore the new uniform which had been made ready for this day. It was of lighter grey than the regular Army uniform, was adorned with gold buttons, the Nazi insignia and the Iron Cross Adolf Hitler won in the last World War. There was no other uniform like it in Germany, and no one in Germany, not even the Kaiser, had ever spoken as Hitler spoke that day. It was the speech of a man persecuted beyond endurance, a man driven by some mystical inner necessity, a man who was alone with his fate. The speech contained 78 I's.

"I made proposal after proposal. . . . I made an offer to them some time ago which was the most loyal and most generous imaginable. Only I, myself, could have made such an offer, although I knew millions of Germans disagreed with me. . . . Over a period of four months I have been looking on. . . . I proposed a solution on the basis of direct negotiations. For two long days I have been waiting. . . . My love of peace and my endless patience should not be mistaken for weakness. . . . I am now determined to talk the same language to Poland that Poland has been talking to us. I have given in to the Western Powers for quite some time. . . .

"I myself am today, and will be from now on, nothing but the soldier of the German Reich; just as I fought in the last war, so I will fight now. I shall not take off this uniform until we have achieved victory. . . . However, if something should happen to me; I want the German people to know that I have appointed Field Marshal Goering to become my successor. If something should happen to Field Marshal Goering, my deputy Rudolf Hess, will take his place; and if something should happen to Hess, a senate which I will soon appoint, will elect his successor, the man most worthy to succeed me--that is to say, the bravest man.

"I never knew what the word 'capitulation' means."

What psychic forces drove Adolf Hitler into war last week nobody knew for certain, but it was recalled that he had been reported to believe in astrology, and all astrologers agreed that September 1 was his fateful day. Reports of his talks with Sir Nevile Henderson and French Ambassador Robert Coulondre suggested even stranger reasons. He had said that he must accomplish his mission in Europe within 24 months because "I have other work to perform." To Sir Nevile, Hitler was quoted as having said: ''All my life I have wanted to be a great painter in oils. I am tired of politics, and as soon as I have carried out my program for Germany I shall take up my painting. I feel that I have it in my soul to become one of the great artists of the age and that future historians will remember me, not for what I have done for Germany, but for my art."

When he was a young man Adolf Hitler tried to get into the Vienna Art Academy, was rejected because his sketches were "below standard." For the rejection he blamed the Jews. Two days after his Reichstag speech he addressed a proclamation to the German people, saying: "It is that Jewish plutocratic and democratic upper crust which . . . hates our new Reich." Then he prepared to leave for the Eastern Front, where his Army and that of Smigly-Rydz, an able if academic landscapist, were locked in a painters' war (see p. 18).

That night, the blackest night in Europe since Adolf Hitler was a corporal, he stepped into a black car with all its lights out and sped through Berlin's blackened streets toward the East, still muttering against the Jews.

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