Hitler

to earn it.’ His instinctive belief in reward for the strongest remained intact. ‘If, therefore, Providence grants life as the prize to those who have fought and defended the most courageously, then our people will find mercy from the just arbiter who at all times gave victory to the most meritorious.’
    However hollow such sentiments sounded to men at the various fronts, suffering untold hardships, enduring hourly danger, often realizing they would never see their loved ones again, they were, for Hitler himself, far from mere cynical propaganda. He had to believe these ideas – and did, certainly down to the summer of 1944, if not longer. The references, in public and private, to ‘Providence’ and ‘Fate’ increased as his own control over the course of the war declined. The views on the course of the war which he expressed to his generals, to other Nazi leaders, and to his immediate entourage gave no inkling that his own resolve was wavering, or that he had become in any way resigned to the prospect of defeat. If it was an act, then it was one brilliantly sustained, and remained substantially unchanged whatever the context or personnel involved. ‘It is impressive, with what certainty the Führer believes in his mission,’ noted Goebbels in his diary in early June 1944. Others who saw Hitler frequently, in close proximity, and were less impressionable than Goebbels, thought the same. Without the inner conviction, Hitler would have been unable to sway those around him, as he continued so often to do, to find new resolve. Without it, he would not have engaged so fanatically in bitter conflicts with his military leaders. Without it, he would have been incapable, not least, of sustaining in himself the capacity to continue, despite increasingly overwhelming odds.
    The astonishing optimism did not give way, despite the mounting crises and calamities of the first half of 1944. But the self-deception involved was colossal. Hitler lived increasingly in a world of illusion, clutching as the year wore on ever more desperately at whatever straws he could find. The invasion, when it came, would be repulsed without doubt, he thought. He placed enormous hopes, too, in the devastating effect of the ‘wonder-weapons’. When they failed to match expectations,he would remain convinced that the alliance against him was fragile and would soon fall apart, as had occurred in the Seven Years War two centuries earlier following the indomitable defence of one of his heroes, Frederick the Great. Even at the very end of a catastrophic year for Germany, he would not give up hope of this happening. He would still be hoping for miracles.
    He had, however, no rational ways out of the inevitable catastrophe to offer those who, in better times, had lavished their adulation upon him. Albert Speer, in a pen-picture drawn immediately after the war, saw Hitler’s earlier ‘genius’ at finding ‘elegant’ ways out of crises eroded by relentless overwork imposed on him by war’s demands, undermining the intuition which had required the more spacious and leisured life-style suited to an artistic temperament. The change in work-patterns – turning himself, against his natural temperament, into an obsessive workaholic, preoccupied by detail, unable to relax, surrounded by an unchanging and uninspiring entourage – had brought in its train, thought Speer, enormous mental strain together with increased inflexibility and obstinacy in decisions which had closed off all but the route to disaster.
    It was certainly the case that Hitler’s entire existence had been consumed by the prosecution of the war. The leisured times of the pre-war years were gone. The impatience with detail, detachment from day-today issues, preoccupation with grandiose architectural schemes, generous allocation of time for relaxation, listening to music, watching films, indulging in the indolence which had been a characteristic since his youth, had indeed given way to a punishing work-schedule in which Hitler brooded incessantly over the most detailed matters of military tactics, leaving little or no space for anything unconnected with the conduct of war in a routine essentially unchanged day in and day out. Nights with little sleep; rising late in the mornings; lengthy midday and early evening conferences, often extremely stressful, with his military leaders; a strict, spartan diet, and meals often taken alone in his room; no exercise beyond a brief daily walk