FASCISM AND BOHEMIA
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tric and quite lacking in political significance. A good starting point
for the biographer interested in the political form of Hitlerism and
the essential contribution of the Fuehrer would be Marx's comments
on Louis Bonaparte: "The Society of December 10 [Bonaparte's
bohemian army] belonged to him, it was
his
work, his very own idea.
Whatever else he gets hold of is put into his hands by the force of
circumstance; whatever el:se he does the circumstances do for him or
he is content to copy from the deeds of others."
The facts in Heiden's book show that Hitler's sole consistent
strategy was to ke'ep his gang intact and to remain at the head of it,
until power was "put into his hands." That this gift actually descended
upon him is his Miracle which he never fails to call upon in his State
speeches.
Heiden fails to uncover the class sources of the life streams of
the Nazi party. Conceiving classlessness as thing in itself, as a cate–
gory describing a certain modem psychological attitude, Heiden traces
the adventures of Hitler only against the background of surface
political events, such as the French policy in ·the Ruhr or the maneuv–
erings of Hindenburg. Thus he tells us in sum that the Nazis were a
strange rabble; that their policy was improvised out of a wide range
of cliches and the absurd, noxious and romantic notions of several
nineteenth-century provocateurs, xenophobes, and theoretical world
conquerors; that this policy was changed at will-and that through
a seti.es of accidents, brutalities and conspiracies this Hitlerite Noah's
Ark finally emptied its contents into the offices of the German State.
The blocks of generalizations concerning the nature and history
of bohemianism which Heiden intersperses throughout his narrative
do not indicate why classlessness was victorious in Germany.
The Genius of Der Fuehrer
Some of Heiden's conclusions about the personality of Hitler
seem inescapable, in view of the literary style of
Mein Kampf.
To
understand Hitler we must probably start with the contradiction put
forward by Heiden that Hitler is a gray, colorless, empty character–
"the void, it might be said, disguised as a man"-who, at the same
time secretes in certain areas of his ego an immense strength. Most like–
ly we ought to shave off a bit from the stature which Hitler has taken
on in Heiden's mind, and analyze more sharply the cultural meaning
of Hitler's constant babbling about "the artist" and his habit of pro–
nouncing the last word on every subject, from how women react in
the theatre to the need for superhighways. There are executives in all
countries today who decide on such matters, after listening to the
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