In many ways the past few weeks have been eventful. A good book has been finished, another begins and the reading regime proceeds without delay. My eardrum randomly decided to perforate itself, by a twist of fate 1 hour after the new year started. Strange but true. In other news my current temporary has come to an end, a few weeks prematurely. All thanks to some kind of internal switch around. Not a firing, just a polite shrug to the agency temp and off I go from this Friday. A part of me is sad, a part not. While much of what I do now is rewarding, without going into too much detail I find it very stressful. I can safely say I won't be applying for more reception work in the near future. Thankfully a new temp job (with the possibility of being permanent) will begin for me immediately from monday next week. So no rest for the weary.
I named the post as it is because in many ways this has been a recurring theme in the past few weeks. I have finished reading massive biography of Hitler by Ian Kershaw. A very good book about a rather repulsive and often grim subject (the person and the circumstances that brought him about), more about that later. The next book I have courtesy of a bookstore voucher I got for Christmas is Tony Blair's book 'A Journey'. This also conveyed the end of an era sense. While I was reading the book in the staff room a colleague politely interrupted me to ask how the book is. I assured them that it is worth a read and more self depreciating than you would expect the man to be. She commented that in a sense the era of his leadership was an interesting one. And I guess in many ways it was. The whole New Labour craze, Diana's death, the Good Friday Agreement, the Millenium Dome, the War on Terror and yes Iraq as well. Like or loathe Blair I guess there is going to be a point when my generation is a bit older, when we tell the then younguns about those strange, exciting and often tragic times. Everyone remembers where they were when Diana died and when they heard about 9/11, such are the times.
On a more serious note the end of an era sense came to me on a more personal level this week. I have to be careful with what I say here because of the danger of raising Facebook hell and gossip. All I can say is I made a personal decision to end something this week, those who know me well know what I am talking about. And the rest, well just rest assured that I am OK. It was a hard decision to make at the time but I am proud I made it. I know now that although memories are good, but nothing lasts forever. Sometimes you have to move on.
Often after finishing a book I often spend many weeks after wondering about it. Such is the case with 'Hitler' by Ian Kershaw. In many ways the book is a myth-buster. Hitler wasn't superhuman, nor was he a demon. He had mental baggage (and then some!). But his views were receptive to a wide audience at the time. What Ian reveals that is most astonishing about Hitler's life is the oppurtunism in it. There were so many oppurtunities for him to drift off into obscurity and away from any path remotely attached to the one he eventually followed. He could of died as the homeless vagrant that he actually became in his later days in Vienna. He could of been sent to prison as a draft dodger in Austria. He could have got into the Vienna Fine Arts Academy (IF he put the work in that is).
But these things didn't happen, and as they say the rest is history. I guess in that way the book is a clear cautionary tale. In some sense swathes of the German population made a faustian pact with Hitler to regain national pride and at the very least survive. The extraordinary times distorted the political picture many times over. At best we hope for placid times for young democracies. No such luck for Iraq today, or the Weimar Republic in Germany. The Great Depression were a god-send to the right and left extremes of the German political spectrum. This mixed in with a lack of forsight on the part of the victors of WWI effectively lead straight into WWII.
In many ways the oppurtunism worked both ways in Hitlers life. Seemingly random figures took advantage of the unusual form of government, which heavily favoured sychophancy to the leader. Himmler started out as a chicken farmer and ended as an immensly powerful genocidal figure. Goebbels started as a failed playwrite and ended as a Propaganda Minister, murdering his entire family at the very end, and then himself. And Goring started out as a playboy aristochrat, became in charge of an airforce and then also commited suicide in the end. Many of the excesses of the Third Reich would not of been possible without them. All had some vested interest in the 'project'. Yet the most remarkable of Hitler's acolytes was Albert Speer, a maverick architect who became the armaments minister, and a very successful one too. Remarkably at the last minute he stood against Hitler and refused to follow his orders in condemning the German people's chances of survival through the ordeal of the war.
It's a story of freakish extremes, yet there are many strains you can still see in contemporary politics. Obsession over following the 'message' in party politics. Propaganda set-pieces. Political oppurtunism. Leaders picking court favourite's. And ever present backstabbing. And last but by no means persistent vagueness by politicians in their commitments, to remain "flexible", but crucially reducing commitments and avoiding broken promises (by not making any). In many ways scarily like today.
