A Portrait of the Young Warrior as an Artist

a rough sketch by Minos Mohyeddin April 2006

Within the confines of the Western canon a Chaplinesque moustache for the Corporal will always be preferred to the quagmire of Verdun or the heroic antics of Snoopy and the the Red Baron

I read recently that an auction house in Britain is preparing to put under the hammer twenty-odd works of art by the late-unlamented lord and master of the long defunct Thousand Year Reich, better known to all the world as Adolf Hitler. The collection, a combination of sketches and watercolours, was recently found (as such masterpieces often are) in a suitcase in somebodys attic (somewhere in Belgium, I believe). Experts think that they were produced by Hitler during the second half of the first world war, while he was serving the Imperial German Army in the quagmired battlefields of France, sometime in between being awarded his first Iron Cross (Second Class) and his second Iron Cross (First Class). These experts are in the process of confirming the authenticity of the works. If they are indeed found to have been produced by Der Fhrer, they will be auctioned off sometime in March and the set is expected to fetch up to $150,000. Thats a lot of dosh for what can at best be classified as mediocre compositions. None but the most inartistically minded of soulless cretins would mistake Hitler for Rembrandt. For much as Hitler loved to draw and picture himself as being the next Sinan, his sketches never amounted to anything more than amateurish and not very original bluster. The newly discovered pieces reflect nothing of the war-ravaged landscape in which Hitler is said to have produced them. They depict various buildings that he may have encountered in the locale, with perhaps some embellishment on his part. As a failed student of architecture he was always obsessed with the construction of grandiloquent, larger than life edifices as testaments to his and Germanys greatness, like the grand Fhrerpalast and the truly colossal Great Assembly Hall. And, with his hypnotic charisma, he was very often able to convince men of more sound mind, like Goebbels and his de facto chief architect Albert Speer for instance, of the viability of his over the top plans and designs. Now who do you think would pay $150,000 for the privilege of owning a set of naively rendered watercolours of church spires and rural cottages? Of course, I accept that the value of a work of art bears little relation to reality (and often none to its calibre) and in fact has no intrinsic value save that of what people in the know perceive it to have. So these works will be bought by collectors for whom the ownership of something actually produced by Hitler himself means something. But just what kind of collector would be interested? The most obvious answer is the neo-Nazi kind. Those for whom the Hitler myth embodies the very essence of supremacist and/or nationalistic fervour. Who believe in the superiority of one race or group of people over all others, and the god-given right that superiority confers on them to dominate and possess what they need or want or desire or covet. By politics or, more often, an extension of it by other means.

But I seriously doubt that these degenerates would step up to the plate. In this age of political correctness and allied ascendancy, they are on the run and are unlikely to risk exposing themselves to the ridicule and censure of the world at large. Which is a reflection of the strange and wonderful times we live in. In eras past, the revisionist resurrection of the reputation of a man like Hitler would, sixty years after his death, have been in full swing and a significant body of people, respected academics and philosophers and clerics among them, would be championing the validity of his views and objectives. Thankfully this is not the case. The prevalence of superficially democratic beliefs and the pervasion of mass media (and its more focused cousin, the feature film industry), combined with the clinically efficient quasi-Jewish propaganda machine, has ensured that the rest of the world hates Hitler and the Nazis as much as the Ashkenazis claim to. I was recently discussing with my teenage children my view on age as a factor in assigning respect to an individual. Which view, in a nutshell, is this: I do not respect anyone purely on the basis of age. He or she must have some characteristics or traits or achievements or experiences that merit respect on my part. Naturally my children took exception to this view. They have been brought up (rightly so, but only to an extent) to respect their elders. As an illustration of what I meant, I asked them to name the most evil person they could think of. Without pause, they both said, Hitler. Now, if Hitler were alive today, I said, he would be older than you and I. Which factoid they accepted. Would you respect him? I asked. Nooooooo, of course not! was the resounding answer. QED, I intoned smugly. The point is that Hitler is universally regarded as being the evilest man that ever lived. Whether or not thats true is immaterial. Not Stalin not Idi Amin not Caligula not Vlad Dracul inspires such hiqaarat and aces the Most Evil list in every publication from the Reykjavic Morning Herald to the Cordoba Evening Gazette, though Mohammed Ata has, in the past been known to trail a distant second. When I was thriteen I produced a poster-sized paean to the Nazi creed. Emblazoned with a huge swastika, my poster proclaimed Long Live Nazism. At that point I had no idea what Nazism meant or stood for. I had read about it tangentially and for some reason my young and fertile mind germinated the seed of an idea that these smart jackbooted young blue eyed blonds might have redemptive powers beyond the grasp of my uninspired teenage Weltanschauung. My dad was, understandably, upset. He hauled me in for one of his now look here sons (I only ever had about four of them). What do you mean about this Nazism thing? I dont know, I ventured in response. they have a nice sign. We didnt call them logos in those days. Do you know what its called? he said in a voice Id never heard him use before. Sort of like the disappointed tone my Maths teacher adopted whenever Id muff a particularly easy integration problem. Yeah, the Swastika. I want that dumb. Thats right, from the Sanskrit swas teeka. The Germans called it the Hakencreuz, the hooked cross. Its been used by many creeds including Hindus who decorate their doorways

and puja palaces with it. Exept theirs is hooked the other way and is usually horizontally aligned. Unlike the Hakencreuz which is tilted at a forty-five degree angle. His point was, I guess, know what youre talking about. So I studied my subject. I read about the Gestapo and the forced migration of undesirables in Europe. I read Leon Uris Exodus and was appalled at the ill-treatment meted out to the Jews over the centuries. I read Mila 18 and had my sypmathies firmly in the Jewish camp. I bought into the conventional wisdom that Nazi equalled evil unquestioningly. I read Sven Hassel, who claimed, in his novels, to be the survivor of one of the late prisoner of war brigades scrabbled together by the SS and what was left of the German administration by that time. I formed a new picture of the Third Reich. Long long after that, when I grew up and recovered from the ill effects of History Teacher Miss Durreshahwars destructive influence on the study of history during the last years of my schooling, I read other writers. I read Taylor and Fest and Kershaw and Heiden and a different picture of the second world war and the Third Reich emerged. One thing I realised is that Europe, to this day, cannot digest the fact that such depravity came to pass in their own backyard, and suffer excruciating guilt pangs at not having had the foresight (or inclination) to corral him when they had the chance. Im sometimes told I come across as a Hitler apoloigist. Heaven forbid. I never deny that he and his regime were evil. But what about his times, which were at least as evil. What about his contemporaries who stood by and allowed him to get away with murder figuratively and literally. Avoid war at any cost was Chamberlain and the wretched Deladiers unassailable motto. Destroy my enemies was Stalins stated goal. Between their cajoling and kowtowing and vague posturing they forced him into a position where the only selfrespecting option open to him as the Kommandant of a resurrected and once again fearsome Teutonic war machine was war. Germany will stand up and be counted among the victors was Hitlers rallying cry. To which cry fifty million Teutons clustered round in anticipation of the glory promised in Teutonic folklore since time immemorial. And what they got in return was a prima donna who wanted to be recognised as a talented architect. This was the monster that Europe held itself hostage to for twelve years. This was the bogeyman that Jews have been drumming into my head ever since I was born. The Antichrist to those who dont even believe in Christ. Allah hu. Now, as with the value of art, Perception is the Reality (one of my many, sorry, mottoes). So coming back to my original premise, perhaps I should qualify my previous claim: Hitler is universally derided as the evilest man that ever lived for all but certain men and women of moral ambivalence, who regard his defining anti-semitism as the final solution to the worlds ills and, in some cases, venerate the man and his ideals either from personal experience, or out of sympathy with those who have personal experience, of Jewish atrocities in and around Israel and the fledgling Palestinian state. Would this second group of Hitler fans comprise another set of firaagh-dil collectors who might want to dole out a hefty sum for the privilege of owning examples of Hitlers artistic endeavours? Somehow, I think not. I have yet to come across an oriental blood and spitfire anti-semite who would be willing to part with a large sum of money for any piece of memorabilia other than a spurious piece of holy shroud, or stringed beads that have supposedly survived the fourteen hundred years since some particularly bloody conflict.

Which leaves us with those collectors who despise Hitler and his views but, nonetheless, being rich and being collectors to boot, feel the need to possess examples of Hitlers talent (or rather lack thereof). (As an aside, I live in a siliceous chrysopolis where the one and only factor in determining a persons social status is an abundance of wealth and the pompous display of it. Somehow I dont see anyone out here doling out that kind of cash for works of dubious merit or any merit, for that matter when that amount can buy you a Porsche 997 Turbo with full Gemballa bodykit and 22-inch rims or its evil overweight sister, the heavyweight contender for Most Pointless Vehicle on the Planet, the Porsche Cayenne Turbo, with 23-inch rims, 24-karat gold trim and intergalactic 25,000 watt surround sound multimedia entertainment system.) I wonder where the ultimate buyer would display these works. The answer that first springs to mind is in her toilets (though you must consider the danger of terminal constipation resulting from prolonged exposure to such wishy-washy trash while attempting to relieve oneself of ones burden). But even the most extravagant of well-heeled collectors is unlikely to have twenty bathrooms in her ostentatious and palatial home. Perhaps, in a display of civic-minded philanthropy, they would be donated to renowned schools of art and architecture as examples of what not to aspire to both artistically and morally. In this case Hitler would realise, in death, one of the few unfulfilled ambitions of his life: to have his works viewed, discussed and analysed by men and women of acknowledged artistic talent. Going once. Going twice. Okay, Im gone.