Hitler bio by Toland, citation sought!

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Vance Pollock
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Location: Asheville, NC

Hitler bio by Toland, citation sought!

#1

Post by Vance Pollock » 27 May 2002, 21:43

This query was posted some time ago with a different subject title. Now, having had a chance to look in the National Library here in Iceland as well as in several book shops, used and new, I am finding this book hard to come by on the island. I´m sure a number of forum readers have this one on their shelf and would be able to respond to this post with the proper citation. Thanks.
Also, in the meantime, I have discovered a reference to some forged Hitler poetry. Does this call the poem from Toland's work into question? Quote follows:
Everybody ended up looking silly over the infamous Hitler Diaries hoax. German wag and handwriting mimic Konrad Kujau's fake journals in 1983 made saps of Newsweek, the Times of London, and the venerable German magazine Stern. Newsweek took some serious lumps for its statement that the diaries' authenticity "almost doesn't matter."

I'm on Newsweek's side on this one. Even before the diaries came out, every possible grain of Hitlerism sand had already been sifted. Kujau's other forgeries included World War I-era Hitler poetry, some very convincing samples of hand-drawn Fuhrerkunst, and even Weiland and the Blacksmith, Hitler's maiden effort as a librettist.

(end quote)

...and now the original post
---
I am looking for a complete version of the Hitler poem that appears in the biography by John Toland.
I don´t even have the book at hand now, but the portion translated there, I seem to recall, was said to have been written during WWI and it contains references to Norse deities such as Odin/Wotan et al.
I am wondering if this poetry was inspired by Hitler´s blind time. That AH conciously identified with Odin/Wotan hanging from the tree and losing an eye to have the runes revealed to him might be a stretch, but I once read a 1930s account by American nationalist William Dudley Pelley to the effect that Hitler, while blind, had some sort of "vision" or epiphany. I think Pelley was drawing a comparison with an experience he had about the same time while stricken with typhoid.
Anyway, I would like to see the entire poem, or even the Toland excerpt if someone would be so kind as to post it. I would be interested in the original and any reasonable English translations.
Please offer any related dates, details, suggestions or sources.

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USAF1986
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#2

Post by USAF1986 » 28 May 2002, 05:33

Vance,

Is this poem you are referring to? This appears on page 64 of John Toland’s “Adolf Hitler” (Wordsworth Editions Limited, Chatham, Kent, UK, 1997 edition of original 1976 edition). Toland indicates Hitler probably wrote this poem in the autumn of 1915 (prior to his blinding by gas on 14 October 1918). Toland notes: “Perhaps it was the season of perception. That fall on a night made gray-white with hoarfrost he may have felt the sense of his destiny when he wrote this strange poem:"

I often go on bitter nights
To Wotan’s oak in the quiet glade
With dark powers to weave a union—
The runic letters the moon makes with its magic spell
And all who are full of impudence during the day
Are made small by the magic formula!
They draw shining steel—but instead of going into combat
They solidify into stalagmites.
So the false ones part from the real ones—
I reach into a nest of words
And then give to the good and just
With my formula blessings and prosperity.

Regards,
Shawn


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Vance Pollock
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Joined: 16 May 2002, 21:03
Location: Asheville, NC

Bull's eye!

#3

Post by Vance Pollock » 28 May 2002, 20:31

That´s the one!
Thanks, Shawn. Hope you don´t mind that I am copying and pasting this as a response to the other thread: Hitler poetry, blindness, Norse gods... in Third Reich.
Regards.

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