The Review of Politics

Table of Contents - 1945 - Volume 7, Issue 03  

Articles

Hitler—The Simplifier of German Nationalism

Waldemar Gurian

The best description of Adolf Hitler's character can be found in Jacob Burckhardt's Historical Fragments. In these lecture notes, published after his death, the great Swiss historian devotes a few pages to Mohammed as founder of Islam. I do not know whether these pages do justice to the Prophet of the Mohammedans, but I think that they are very important for the understanding of the mentality and the historical role of the Führer. “Mohammed is in his very personality fanatical, that is his fundamental force. His fanaticism is that of a radical simplifier, and so far he is completely genuine. His fanaticism is of a most tenacious kind, and his victory is one of the greatest victories of the doctrinaire attitude and of triviality.” “His paltry preaching alone would have obtained only moderate and transitory success, but he continually presented to his bands concrete aims … plunder of caravans, conquests in Arabia, with the accompanying booty. The Holy War against the outside world follows, as something self-evident. The World Empire is simply a conclusion.” Burckhardt points out that the Arabs, the henchmen of Mohammed, were not barbarians. They were an ingenious people, with many spiritual traditions; Mohammed's success among them was based upon a longing for unification, for an “extreme simplification.” Mohammed utilized parts of the most various traditions. Therefore, “everybody found something reminiscent of his previous beliefs in the preaching of Mohammed.”

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