The first biography of Adolf Hitler
which presented him as “Germany’s saviour” and compared him to Jesus may
have been written by the future dictator himself, a Scottish historian
has claimed.
“Adolf Hitler: Sein Leben und seine
Reden (Adolf Hitler: His Life and his Speeches)” was the first major
profile of Hitler and appeared in 1923, authored by Victor von Koerber.
Historian Thomas Weber, from Aberdeen
University, has unearthed documents in a South African archive which
indicates the book was “almost certainly” written by Hitler himself as a
“shameless but clever act of self-promotion”.
“The book, which also includes a
collection of Hitler’s speeches, makes some outlandish claims arguing
that it should become ‘the new bible of today’ and uses terms such as
‘holy’ and ‘deliverance’, comparing Hitler to Jesus and likening his
moment of politicalisation to Jesus’ resurrection,” Weber said.
“To find it was actually written by
Hitler himself…demonstrates that he was a conniving political operator
with a masterful understanding of political processes and narratives
long before he drafted what is regarded as his first autobiography,
‘Mein Kampf’.”
Weber, a professor of history and
international affairs and a visiting scholar at Harvard University, said
he found the evidence while reviewing von Koerber’s papers at the
University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg for his new book about
how Hitler became a Nazi.
The historian believes von Koerber was
selected to front the biography due to his aristocratic lineage and
reputation as a war hero.
“I found a signed testimony given under
oath by the wife of the book’s publisher stating that Victor von Koerber
had not written the book and that Hitler had asked General Ludendorff
(an ally in the failed putsch of 1923) if he could find a conservative
writer without any connection to the Nazi party to put his name to it,”
he said.
“I also found a statement by Koerber as
well as a letter he wrote to a man with whom he had been incarcerated in
a concentration camp that gave details about Hitler’s authorship of the
book.
“Subsequently, in Germany, I found a
document from 1938 in which von Koerber alludes to Hitler writing the
book, stating that it was written ‘on the initiative of and with the
active participation of Adolf Hitler’.”
The book also contains the first
reference to Hitler’s “political awakening” in a military hospital which
“would later be repeated in almost identical language in Mein Kampf”.
Weber said: “Taken together, the pieces
of evidence now available to us build a compelling picture that this was
indeed an autobiography written to boost Hitler’s profile as the
‘German saviour’ and that even at this early stage of his career he was
an astute and manipulative political operator.”
AFP
Comments
Post a Comment