How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Chamberlain was swept off his feet by the eloquent young Austrian. "You have mighty things to do," he wrote Hitler on the following day, ". . . My faith in Germanism had not wavered an instant, though my hope—I confess—was at a low ebb. With one stroke you have transformed the state of my soul. That in the hour of her deepest need Germany gives birth to a Hitler proves her vitality; as to the influences that emanate from him; for these two things—personality and influence—belong together... May God protect you!" (1.4.134)
Shirer writes that Houston Chamberlain's admiration for the young would-be Fuehrer came at a time when Hitler, "with his Charlie Chaplin moustache, his rowdy manners and his violent, outlandish extremism, was still considered a joke by most Germans" (1.4.135). Talk about an ego boost; these early supporters fueled his ambitions. Too bad he wasn't as ambitious when his struggling mother could've used some financial support.
Quote #2
Mein Kampf is sprinkled with little essays on the role of the genius who is picked by Providence to lead a great people, even though they may not at first understand him or recognize his worth, out of their troubles to further greatness. The reader is aware that Hitler is referring to himself and his present situation. (1.4.138)
Even as he sat in prison for treason, with his political party banned and his career apparently in ruins, Hitler still thought of himself as a messianic figure.
Quote #3
In Hitler's utterances there runs the theme that the supreme leader is above the morals of ordinary man. Hegel and Nietzsche thought so too. We have seen Hegel's argument that "the private virtues" and "irrelevant moral claims" must not stand in the way of the great rulers, nor must one be squeamish if the heroes, in fulfilling their destiny, trample or "crush to pieces" many an innocent flower. (1.4.143)
Hitler should have read Crime and Punishment instead of Nietzsche and Hegel. There's such a thing as "irrelevant moral claims"? That's plain scary.
Quote #4
The political power in Germany no longer resided, as it had since the birth of the Republic, in the people and in the body which expressed the people's will, the Reichstag. It was now concentrated in the hands of a senile, eighty-five-year-old President and in those of a few shallow ambitious men around him who shaped his weary, wandering mind. (2.6.52)
Our pro-democracy author tells us what he thinks happens when a few ambitious men get their hands of exclusive power. He thinks that von Schleicher, von Papen, and Hitler put the final nails in the coffin of the democratic Weimar Republic—and with it, any hopes of peace for the rest of the world.
Quote #5
In the former Austrian vagabond the conservative classes thought they had found a man who, while remaining their prisoner, would help them attain their goals. The destruction of the Republic was only the first step. What they then wanted was an authoritarian Germany which at home would put an end to democratic "nonsense" and the power of the trade unions and in foreign affairs undo the verdict of 1918, tear off the shackles of Versailles, rebuild a great Army and with its military power restore the country to its place in the sun. (2.6.151)
"These were Hitler's aims too," Shirer writes (2.6.151). There was just one teensy little detail that the conservative classes overlooked. Hitler had every intention of establishing an authoritarian rule, but he had no intention whatsoever of dictating under the thumb of the conservative classes or anyone else.
Quote #6
The President, backed by the Army and the conservatives, had made him Chancellor. His political power, though great, was, however, not complete. It was shared with three sources of authority, which had put him into office and which were outside and, to some extent, distrustful of the National Socialist movement.
Hitler's immediate task, therefore, was to quickly eliminate them from the driver's seat, make his party the exclusive master of the State and then with the power of an authoritarian government and its police carry out the Nazi revolution. (2.7.1-2)
Hitler was not the sort of man to be satisfied with only great power. Until his control over Germany was utterly complete, he continued to use whatever means were necessary to get it. And we mean whatever means necessary.
Quote #7
He had been in office scarcely twenty-four hours when he made his first decisive move, springing a trap on his gullible conservative "captors" and setting in motion a chain of events which he either originated or controlled and which at the end of six months would bring the complete Nazification of Germany and his own elevation to dictator of the Reich, unified and defederalized for the first time in German history. (2.7.2)
Come on, people. How did you not see that coming?
Quote #8
The National Socialist German Workers' Party constitutes the only political party in Germany.
Whoever undertakes to maintain the organizational structure of another political party or to form a new political party will be punished with penal servitude up to three years or with imprisonment of from six months to three years, if the deed is not subject to a greater penalty according to other regulations. (1.7.72-73)
Well, that's one way to make sure that your political party wins. Here, Shirer's quoting directly from a law that the Nazi Party passed in July 1933. Hitler may have been ambitious, but he wasn't the sort of man who valued honest competition—not to mention the will of the people.
Quote #9
The title of President was abolished; Hitler would be known as Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor. His dictatorship had become complete. To leave no loopholes Hitler extracted from all officers and men of the armed forces an oath of allegiance—not to Germany, not to the constitution, which he had violated by not calling for the election of Hindenburg's successor, but to himself. (2.7.179)
This is exactly what he'd wanted and intended all along.
Quote #10
The German form of life is definitely determined for the next thousand years. The Age of Nerves of the nineteenth century has found its close with us. There will be no other revolution in Germany for the next one thousand years! (2.7.199)
Can you imagine the kind of self-confidence—or megalomaniacal self-delusion—it would take to feel sure that you, and you alone, were going to build a nation that would continue, unchanged for an entire millennium? Neither can we.