Conversations with Hitler - Ayad Gharbawi

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Résumé :

Hitler seeks to be interviewed by a relatively uneducated non-German in his final days in the Bunker 1945. Reason - he does not trust any German to pass on his Final Testament. The Americans agree on the condition all questions can and will be asked. Hitler agrees.

Washington DC chooses a 20-year-old Kansas farm girl, Dorothy, a German immigrant. Meanwhile, the naive, gullible Dorothy wants to leave her rural home and be famous and agrees to this mission, which she heartily believes this is the right path to follow her dreams of Hollywood fame and glory.

Her Father convinces only by knowing one's mind can one attain happiness. And one method is by talking to people from all backgrounds and experiences, from the good to the evil. At first, she is repulsed and alienated, being in the stifling Bunker and in the battle-scarred city of Berlin. To understand the Bunkerites and the victims, there is only one method - you must look at their words and feelings from their eyes and not from your perspective. And that's not an easy matter to do, especially when conversing with mass murderers such Hitler, Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, et al.

Since Hitler cannot give her all his time, she mingles with others, conversing with every one of his followers, including Eva Braun, Goering, Ribbentrop, Goebbels, Himmler et al. At other times, she gets out of the Bunker. There she speaks to some of Hitler's opponents and victims, such as Sophie Scholl, Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski, and more.

She wonders, If Hitler is mentally Sick or Evil, what about most ordinary Germans and non-Germans who ardently followed him? Are all of them mentally Sick and Evil? Can an entire nation be Evil?' To answer those questions, Dorothy realizes she must pursue two points that radically differ from the only acceptable, 'respectable, ' publishable Hitler historians.

Hitler is not a mono-chromatic evil maniac. He has a tremendous amount of worthy, admirable, charismatic attributes. It is precisely these alluring qualities that mesmerize millions of people. No modern politician has ever created a crazed atmosphere as Hitler did, with swooning women, men in tears...

Sommaire:
the closest approximation today are the transient fans of Hollywood stars, rock musicians. But a politician? Never. Except for the one-time homeless, work-shy Austrian man.

Secondly, no leader in modern history ordered millions of followers to commit acts of mass murder without force. Every other leader, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, forced their men to enact genocidal policies under the barrel of a gun. Hitler used his unparalleled charisma in getting his followers to implement his ghastly plans, again, with no threat of force. That fact in itself is one more reason why he was unique in modern history.

Does Dorothy get to understand Hitler's mind? Does she get to understand her own mind? Does she understand what Evil is? And Madness? Why are her conversations never published by DC? Why in the last years of her life does she finally decide she must publish them?