One Day University

“Hitler is not of our race,” observed the great German historian Otto Hintze. “He is an alien in our midst.” Hintze was right. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) never had a friend, probably had no sexual life, and ate only vegetables in a German culture addicted to meat. He kept himself spotlessly clean and tidy at all times. Yet this strange “alien” exercised an incredible power over his followers. Dr. Joseph Goebbels and his wife not only committed suicide after Hitler had done so, but poisoned their six children as well. Hitler’s racism and his determination to create a new world order bathed Europe in blood in a way no other human being has: twenty-one million Russians, six million Jews, seven million Poles, seven million Germans, two million Yugoslavs and millions more of other nationalities would die in his war. This lecture will look at Hitler the Man and the Nazi State, to try to make sense of this bizarre and terrible figure. What gave Hitler his peculiar power? Why did Germany obey him? What made him so destructive? These questions continue to trouble and disturb the world. They need answers.