Soldaten полностью

493. The story that Hitler got so angry he literally bit a carpet was spread after journalist William Shirer wrote an article about Hitler’s meeting with Neville Chamberlain on 22 September 1938. Shirer himself had only written that Hitler seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown. But the image of Hitler as “carpet chewer” proved persistent. See Kershaw, Hitler, p. 169.

494. Details like “the Führer’s beautiful hands” were part of his public image and were passed on by the media. See Kershaw, Hitler, p. 410. People who met him also tended to emphasize precisely those details that conformed to his public image.

495. SRX 1167, 15 October 1942, TNA, WO 208/4161.

496. Kershaw, Hitler, p. 407.

497. SRX 1167, 15 October 1942, TNA, WO 208/4161.

498. SRX 1802, 24 June 1943, TNA, WO 208/4163.

499. SRA 3430, 23 December 1942, TNA, WO 208/4128.

500. SRA 3452, 29 December 1942, TNA, WO 208/4128.

501. American sociologist Leon Festinger and colleagues illustrated their theory of cognitive dissonance with the example of an American religious sect, whose members sold all their possessions and assembled atop a mountain because they expected the end of the world and viewed themselves as the chosen ones. When the apocalypse did not happen, the sect members suffered cognitive dissonance. Festinger and his colleagues interviewed them and found that they did not doubt the correctness of their beliefs. Instead they interpreted their disappointed expectations as a further divine test of their faith. The theory proposes that people always try to square reality with their beliefs so as to minimize dissonance. This can happen in two ways. Either expectations can be made to fit the facts, or the facts can be interpreted so as to fit expectations. See Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, When Prophecy Fails (Minneapolis: HarperTorchbooks, 1956).

502. SRA 4166, 7 July 1943, TNA, WO 208/4130.

503. SRA 3795, 12 March 1943, TNA, WO 208/4129.

504. SRGG 216, 12 July 1943, TNA, WO 208/4165.

505. SRA 3660, 9 February 1943, TNA, WO 208/4129.

506. SRA 3781, 7 March 1941, TNA, WO 208/4129.

507. SRM 1090, 29 November 1944, TNA, WO 208/4139.

508. SRGG 250, 20 July 1943, TNA, WO 208/4165.

509. SRA 4246, 3 August 1943, TNA, WO 208/4130.

510. SRA 3620, 1 February 1943, TNA, WO 208/4129.

511. SRA 2702, 28 June 1942, TNA, WO 208/4126.

512. SRM 477, 14 February 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

513. Ibid.

514. SRA 5610, 7 September 1944, TNA, WO 208/4134.

515. SRM 672, 21 July 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

516. SRGG 1234 (C), 20 May 1945, TNA, WO 208/4170.

517. SRGG 1176 (C), 2 May 1945, TNA, WO 208/4169.

518. SRGG 408, 9 September 1943, TNA, WO 208/4166.

519. SRM 202, 20 June 1943, TNA, WO 208/4136.

520. SRGG 220, 12 July 1943, TNA, WO 208/4165.

521. SRA 5084, 20 March 1944, TNA, WO 208/4133.

522. SRM 612, 28 June 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

523. SRA 5127, 3 April 1944, TNA, WO 208/4133.

524. SRM 1262, 6 May 1945, TNA, WO 208/4140.

525. Nicole Bögli, “Als kriegsgefangener Soldat in Fort Hunt” (Master’s thesis, University of Bern, 2010); Stéphanie Fuchs, “ ‘Ich bin kein Nazi, aber Deutscher’” (Master’s thesis, University of Bern, 2010).

526. This would seem to support the conclusions in Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich’s book Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern. Germans do in fact seem to have loved their Führer, and a thorough reevaluation of the history of the Third Reich and its crimes would have required Germans to grieve for the lost object of their affections.

527. SRM 468, 2 February 1944, TNA, WO 208/4137.

528. SRA 3963, 23 April 1943, TNA, WO 208/4130.

529. SRA 3540, 12 January 1943, TNA, WO 208/4129.

530. SRA 1008, 11 December 1940, TNA, WO 208/4122: “That is what I fail to understand. I, too, was in the Hitler Youth and fought. And it was a good idea too. No one can say anything against it. But there were things that were unnecessary like cutting off all the Jews.”

531. SRA 1259, 8 February 1941, TNA, WO 208/4123: “The Jews have systematically stirred people up against Germany. In Poland too. Anyway, who are the Poles? They’re at such a low level of culture. You can’t compare them with Germans at all.”

532. SRM 614, 1 July 1944, TNA, WO 208/4138.

533. SRN 2912, 10 February 1944, TNA, WO 208/4149.

534. SRM 1061, 27 November 1944, TNA, WO 208/4139.

535. SRA 289, 6 August 1940, TNA, WO 208/4118.

536. Alexander Hoerkens, “Kämpfer des Dritten Reiches? Die nationalsozialistische Durchdringung der Wehrmacht” (Master’s thesis, University of Mainz, 2009).

537. SRA 5118, 28 March 1944, TNA, WO 208/4133.

538. SRM 45, 10 February 1942, TNA, WO 208/4136.

539. Heinrich von Kleist, Über die allmähliche Verfertigung der Gedanken beim Sprechen (Frankfurt/Main: Dielmann, 2010).

540. SRN 151, 7 December 1940, TNA, WO 208/4141.

541. Room Conversation, Kotschi-Graupe-Schwartze-Boscheinen, 25 February 1945, NARA, RG 164, Entry 179, Box 475.

542. SRN 1767, 8 May 1943, TNA, WO 208/4145.