Joachim Fest - Hitler

President of the Danzig Senate 1933–34. A former Nazi, Rauschning fled to England and then to the United States in 1940, where he later became a naturalized citizen. He wrote extensively about Germany and Nazism.

An allusion to Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Idea. —TRANS.

Erfüllungspolitik, literally fulfillment [of the terms of the Versailles Treaty] policy.—TRANS.

Quotation from Schiller’s drama, Die Piccolomini, I:1.—TRANS.

Albert Grzesinski, police commissioner of Berlin; Otto Braun, Premier of Prussia; Carl Severing, Prussian Minister of the Interior; all Social Democrats.

Thingspiele pretended to be dramatic re-creations of the ancient Teutonic judicial assembly, the Thing, which had met outdoors. In practice they were potpourris of Nazi propaganda, Germanic mythology, and borrowings from Wagner and the Brothers Grimm.—TRANS.

Himmler enjoyed the unique and personal title of Reichsführer-SS. The Reichsführung was the central office of the SS, his personal headquarters.

A typical Hitler formulation: mauschelnde Kaftanjuden. Mauscheln means “to talk with a Jewish accent” and also carries overtones of “to cheat.” The caftan, which some Jews in Vienna still wore, seemed to excite a peculiar horror in Hitler, and became in itself a term of abuse. By comparison, the last word of the passage, Judendreck, is relatively mild.—TRANS.

The melodramatic translation “warlord” for Feldherr has already become traditional in books about Hitler. Strictly speaking, Feldherr means no more than “commanding general” or “supreme commander”; its slightly bombastic connotation is exaggerated by “warlord.” But a one-for-one translation of Feldherr is sometimes useful. We have therefore adopted “generalissimo,” although that word, too, has a misleading “Chinese” connotation.—TRANS.

The main office for security, founded by Heydrich and after his death run by Ernst Kaltenbrunner; ultimately all the police forces of the Reich were made subordinate to it.