Hitler and I

THE answers to almost all the questions you ever asked about the private and public life of Adolf Hitler are in this book. And they aren’t hearsay either. Otto Strasser, a Bavarian war hero, was an early associate of the Nazi leader, studied him at first hand, recorded his conversations, and, even after he broke with him to form the antiNazi Black Front, kept up his observations through underground channels. It’s all as exciting as a novel, and even more incredible. Hitler, the man who Hung himself ignominiously on the ground in the Munich Putsch which he engineered in 1923, who was induced to write Mein Kampf by fellow prisoners grown tired ot his windy orations, who turned over personally to the executioner all his earliest friends and comradesin-arms — here is the man, if that’s the word, who became Fuhrer of the German people and conqueror of half of Europe. Strasser doesn’t explain the mystery. His book is less philosophical than biographical — a page in the history of the times which boggles the imagination. Its thesis is that Hitler sold out the socialism on which the revolution thrived and became the tool of the imperialistic army. Hitler, in other words, did what Spengler foresaw. In the light of what has happened since, the theory has a ring of plausibility. Not so plausible is the assertion that millions of ‘real Germans’ are awaiting some military reverse in order to overthrow the Nazi régime.