Art, Glorious Art

Would History have run a different course if Adolf Hitler had never become a politician? If the Vienna Academy of Art had accepted him as a student? He ardently longed to be an artist. Yet the Academy turned him down for lack of talent. What irony of fate. What tragedy for millions of people.

In his despair Hitler deserted his roommate Kubizek, who had been selling his paintings for ten shillings each. He walked the streets, slept on park benches and for six long years ate in charity kitchens. Yes, Adolf Hitler.

In 1914, when World War I broke out, Hitler hurried across the Austrian border, changed his citizenship and joined the German Army. To vent his pent-up feelings he wanted hands-on battle. He earned the Iron Cross First and Second Class. They became his proudest possessions that he wore until he died. 

Yet painting remained Hitler’s foremost passion. As soon as WW I ended, he hurried back to Vienna and applied again at the Academy of Art. But, again, he was turned down. His fury was boundless, and he swore revenge. It must have been one of his most gratifying moments when a few years later he deprived Austria of its independence and annexed it to the German Reich.

More ironic, the government sent him to oratory training so he would spy for them on communist activities. Yet wherever he went he gave fervent hate speeches against the government.

The founders of the new German Labor Party heard one of his tirades, and were so impressed, they made Hitler a Committee Member. Hitler renamed the party the Nazi** party, the gruesome embodiment of tyranny.

What would have happened if Hitler had been more artistic? If the Academy had accepted him? If he never had become a politician? We'll never know. But it may have saved the world from years of agony and destruction at his hands.

Until next time,

Rosi

*      based on the book, "The Madman & His Mistress."
**    Die National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei.  

Schatzi, my Chaperone

Schatzi was the tiniest dachshund I’d ever seen, with beautiful long curly hair, but he was sharp as a razor blade. He felt it was his mission in life to protect me. I was barely thirty then with two little daughters. My husband had left us, and since this was the swinging seventies when a single woman was considered free game, protection was a good thing to have.

I was the editor of a small German newspaper then and well aware that our advertisers were our most important asset. Our biggest client was Mr. Holze who imported alcoholic beverages from Germany. Mr. Holze was in his sixties, stately and of the old school. He had lost his wife a year or two earlier, but he continued buying the same two season tickets for the San Francisco Opera as he had done for years—the Opera needed to be supported he felt. 

One day he invited me to see La Boheme. Somewhat reluctantly I accepted his invitation—there was just too much work to do and not enough time for my children.  But La Boheme is one of my favorite operas, and I invited him to have a home-cooked dinner beforehand. 

We placed him at the head of the table, my two little daughters to his left, I to his right, and Schatzi, our dachshund, positioned himself strategically between the two of us, keeping a sharp eye on Mr. Holze. 

Mr. Holze, aware of his vast store of knowledge and experience, and my lack of it, proudly held forth with good advice. All very good counsel of course, and most likely I needed it.

Once in a while, and for greater emphasis when he’d explain that I must always do so and so or must never do this or that, he would pat my arm. 

The wrong thing to do—Schatzi did not approve of touching. He uttered a sharp, prohibiting yelp! Dear Mr. Holze quickly retracted his hand, while I could barely keep from bursting out laughing.