Page 40 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The British Diplomats 27

state of coma that they will allow themselves to be engaged one by one.”
rumbold urged Hitler’s neighbors “to be vigilant” and warned that they
were deluding themselves if they believed that they did not have to act
quickly to rein in Germany. the ambassador ended his dispatch with a gen-
eral comment about an especially dangerous aspect of Nazism that, in his
view, explained Hitler’s “prestige and popularity. . . . someone has aptly
said that nationalism is the illegitimate offspring of patriotism by inferiority
complex. Germany has been suffering from such a complex for over a de-
cade. Hitlerism has eradicated it, but only at the cost of burdening europe
with a new outbreak of nationalism.” 27
rumbold also deserves credit for realizing early in 1933 that the Nazis’
racial doctrines stood at the core not only of their anti-semitism but also
of their entire conception of politics, and especially their views on foreign
policy. it was actually an “extremely simple” conception, essentially a crude
restatement of the doctrines of social darwinism. Hitler “starts with the as-
sertion that man is a fighting animal; therefore the nation is, he concludes,
a fighting unit, being a community of fighters. any living organism which
ceases to fight for its existence is, he asserts, doomed to extinction. a coun-
try or a race which ceases to fight is equally doomed. the fighting capacity
of a race depends on its purity. Hence the necessity of ridding it of foreign
impurities. . . . Pacifism [especially widespread among Jews] is the deadliest
sin, for pacifism means the surrender of the race in the fight for existence.
. . . Only brute force can ensure the survival of the race. . . . the race must
fight: a race that rests must rust and perish. the German race, had it been
united in time, would now be master of the globe. . . . to restore the Ger-
man nation again ‘it is necessary to convince the people that the recovery of
freedom by force of arms is a possibility.’” 28
rumbold warned that it would be foolhardy to expect Hitler to moder-
ate his program. He could no more do that than lenin or Mussolini could
renounce his doctrine. Hitler regarded his proposals, which most people
in the West considered to be “fantastic,” as the “granite pillars on which
his policy is supported. He asserts again and again that they cannot be al-
tered or modified.” to hope for a return to “sanity” by the Nazis, rumbold
feared, would be “misleading.” “Hitler’s own record goes to show that he
is a man of extraordinary obstinacy. His success in fighting difficulty after
difficulty during the fourteen years of his political struggle is a proof of his
indomitable character. He boasts of his obstinacy.” 29
rumbold’s evaluation of Hitler was confirmed during his one meeting
with the chancellor, held on May 11, 1933, only fifteen days after he had