cts as opposed to Hitler's fantasy "underscore the dishonesty of the piteous note struck in his autobiography" (1:60). Another aspect of this is what Bracher sees as Hitler's ex post facto attempt to assign a theoretical structure and coherence to his life experiences, adolescent notions of the mythic greatness and destiny of Germany, and development of his political philosophy. But this, like Hitler's mishandling of the Munich Putsch, which should have been conducted with some military precision, is seen by Bracher as blatant misrepresentation, "testify[ing] to his dishonesty and cowardice and to the mendacity of a Weltanschauung whose rigorous precepts were valid only for others" (1:65).
Evidence indicates that Hitler had few political convictions before hooking up with the National Socialists in the early 1920s. Indeed, he was something of a drifter before the war, was a loner during it, and did little to improve his lot afterward. Nevertheless, the structure of military life had an enduring appeal for Hitler, and Bracher sees Hitler's military experience as the decisive force behind the emergence of his Third Reich rationale.
It was the discipline of war and the "front line
acquaintance of the clear and simple military hierarchy
of order and values which were to shape Hitler's sense
of values and turn this unstable dreamer unable to come
to terms with the bourgeois world of work and order
into the rigid fanatic with incredibly oversimplified
ideas of war and order (1:66).
The actual content of Hitler's ideas of order and German virtue is scorned by Bracher, who emphasizes Hitler's embrace of any means of gaining power, including half baked myths about Germany and half baked ideas about society, Jews, etc. As he notes, citing the psychopathic nature of most of Hitler's political convictions as well as the extremist/pamphleteering so...