Remind you of anyone?
By now Hitler paid scarcely any attention to affairs of state. He preferred to stay up all night, seldom went to bed before six o’clock, and what he liked best of all was talking to Speer about grandiose architectural projects—although these were now purely illusory. Even his loyal arms minister and favorite architect….had to acknowledge that Hitler “frequently took flight from reality and entered his world of fantasy.”
Hitler couldn’t bear failure or weakness: anyone who looked ill, slack, or even uninspired was quickly out the picture. He had often explained the dismissal of a prominent figure as being on grounds simply of ill health.
The supreme commander of the navy came for the Fuhrer’s fifty-fifth birthday…Grand Admiral Karl Donitz asked his commander in chief to do everything to keep the Baltic ports open in return. Hitler, as mad for boats as a child for toys, blindly promised Donitz that he would.
At the midday briefing, in spite of the looming military disaster, to everyone’s astonishment he revealed a beaming face, and at the lunch that followed he fell into one of his endless, distracted monologues. This time it was about elephants, which were the strongest animals in existence, and which, like him, abhorred meat.
Without intoxication the last briefing sessions in March and April 1945 were so depressing as to be terrible. The generals seemed to be trying to hoodwink him all the time…he constantly thought he was being sabotaged. Hitler started shouting, waving his arms around, raging, raving, his face so distorted that it was barely recognizable. It was only through aggression that he could defend himself against the traitors he sensed everywhere.
= new reply since forum marked as read
