John Toland Interview with Don Swaim

John Toland Interview with Don Swaim
This is a great interview with John Toland, author of Adolf Hitler and Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1938-1945, the two books that I've been plowing through. After reading Toland's biography of Dillinger, I thought I was up for the Pulitzer prize winning work. Instead, it turns out my brain is full of European WWII & I've got to make room for the Asian WWII stories.
Toland is very unassuming in this interview, but obviously a stickler for detail. It's fun to listen to him (if you've read & enjoyed his books!)
The quote I like best from him so far is "History doesn't repeat itself, human nature repeats itself."
That pretty much sums it up!

Adolf Hitler : The Definitive Biography

Amazon.com: Adolf Hitler : The Definitive Biography: Books: John Toland
p. 1150 "Genius is a will o' the wisp, unless it is founded on perserverance and fanatical determination. That's the most important thing in human existance."
A. Hitler

p. 1180 "To the average German, the Fuehrer was more than a man, he was a supernatural phenomenom. They held positive believe in his invulnerability."
J. Toland

p. 1204 "The greater area of responsibility of the individual, the greater necessity for obedience."
A. Hitler

Toland does a superlative job of describing Hitler. He details the fanatical determination of a brilliant and deliberately evil man. Toldand writes of a man who studied and learned to manipulate crowds in person, who demanded complete and unquestioning obedience, yet was beset by doubt & flagging self-confidence. Toland reveals an asectic vegetarian and pitiful farter that was capable of ordering the deaths of millions: Jews, Russians, Germans, to meet his own megalomanaical and patriotic beliefs.

While Toland paints a painstakingly detailed portrait of Hitler, he scarely mentions the critical interconnections that allowed Hitler to be so successful, such as his party henchmen, Goebbels, Bormann, Goering, Heydrich; or the German capitalists and industrial leaders who funded and enabled his massive spending on public works and re-armament. Toland does describe well all of the people with whom Hitler dealt with, including intimates, direct reports, and foreign diplomats.

Toland however leaves ambiguous how Hitler was able to motivate so many to action. Very little of Hitler's actual speeches are quoted, although Toland does describe their effect on the German populace as being positive and profound. Toland describes how Hitler was able to lie to himself as well as the public. Toland describes how Hitler was able to craft a speech in a speech: to those who knew about the Final Solution, there were plenty of references to what was happening and encouragement to continue; to those who did not know the Final Solution meant extermination of people despised by Hitler (mainly Jews, Russians and Eastern Europeans in general) they only heard vague promises which justified, vindicated and satiated their prejudices.

Toland does an excellent job of describing Hitler's manipulation and domination of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi), including the thugs and gangsters which came along with the party members. During his rise to power, Hitler's brownshirts were used to silence any opposition or debate. Hitler would not tolerate being questioned by others.

Toland does not however describe how an Army corporal, a self-educated artist & historian, a self-doubting, woman fearing weakling was able to manipulate politicians, diplomats, military professionals, capitalists, heads of state as well as a huge percentage of the German population to wage an evil and hate-filled war against so their neighbors. That is to say, Toland does not completely describe the context that enabled a man like Hitler to wield power so deftly. Toland does however describe the process of that manipulation, inspiring wonder and awe (& profound disappointment) in the large mass of people that followed and practically worshipped him.

While we have no parallels with Hitler in the 21st century, the glimpses of the Nazi party provide frightening parallels with Republican party's actions in this century. The willingness to bend & break the law to imprison those who would dare disagree with the party; the tendency to spy on anyone for the welfare of the state; the complete disregard and disdain held for the "enemy"; all of these things have parallels between the 1930's and the 21st century, but orders of magnitude in difference of effect, so far.

I think the most frightening parallel between then & now is the willingness of a populace to believe a leader based on that leader's image and vague generalizations about an "enemy of the state" which allowed the willing minded to apply their own prejudices and thereby support an immoral and illegal war.

Well, it was a rough 1200+ pages, especially since I knew how it ended! I was never so glad to see someone put a pistol to their temple & pull the trigger! Next, I'm onto Toland's book The Rising Sun, The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire. I have every expectation it shall be just an frighteningly illuminating as Hitler's biography was. Who says things are less scary with the lights on!

Father's Day at Poppy's Pizza and Grill, Estes Park, CO

Poppy's Pizza and Grill, Estes Park, CO
Here's what makes Father's Day worthwhile: A beautiful day for lunch with Kent & Linda, on the Big Thompson River in Estes Park. The daddies are happy because Jess & Dave are happy!

Altitude in Summer: Coney Lake, Beaver Reservoir Trailhead, Indian Peaks Wilderness & James Peak Wilderness

ProTrails: Coney Lake, Beaver Reservoir Trailhead, Indian Peaks Wilderness & James Peak Wilderness
Saturday started off blustery and managed to maintain that attitude until we left. We started from the Coney Flat trail head at 8:45 on the almost 7 mile trek up to Buchanan Pass, with the intent of summiting Sawtooth Mountain at 12,304 feet above sea level. Buchanan Pass is the saddle or low point between Sawtooth & the peak just to the north (right) of Sawtooth. Walking up to Sawtooth would have put us just east of the Continental Divide.
It was interesting to note that just a few months earlier, Jim had gone cross country skiing on the same rocky road we were hiking. Apparently, a couple of feet of snow makes a big difference! Still, there was a 5-15 foot drop off on the right side of the road in some places!
We made it to the Buchanan Pass trail head about 2 hours later. We had been protected from a lot of the wind whilst in the trees, but we were coming up to the tree line. The hike started around 9230 elevation, so after a couple of hours of hiking up, the trees had started to thin out. Not to mention that shortly after leaving Coney Flats on the Buchanan Pass trail, we soon lost the trail in the large snow banks. 3 days away from summer and we were walking across acres of snow. Fortunately, we did very little postholing, and just a few more fall down spills. Nobody went hurtling to the end of the snowbank unintentionally, although I did glissade down about 25 feet to avoid the next 25 yards of crossing the snow bank.
We crossed a field of boulders, then crashed through some low evergreens, crossed a swollen stream & voila! there was the trail. Finally, three hours after Coney flats, five hours after embarking, we got to the last ridge before Buchanan Pass. We were at 11,662 feet elevation. There was a large snowfield blocking our way to Buchanan Pass. We could try to walk across it, but slipping meant a long slide down the side of a mountain! Who knew how deep the snow was, feet or inches? We had gotten within 900 feet of the 12,304 foot peak of Sawtooth, a wonderful place to be so close to summer, although the peak would have felt like the dead of winter!
So we declared victory, had a bite to eat, gloried in the blustery beauty of alpine elevations in Roosevelt National Park, and started on the trek down. Slowly but surely, the oxygen became more plentiful. Headed east, we lost the trail again in a snowbank, but didn't get as far off track this time!
We finally got back to the car at around 5:15, making it an 8:45 min day, but far better than the best day at work!
The wildflowers were blooming, but not in vast numbers. There were a few big patches of Columbine just below 11,000 feet, including some huge yellow daisy like flowers over 3 inches in diameter & some tiny little white & purple flowers, maybe one-quarter inch in diameter. We didn't see much wildlife, save for a whistle pig on the way down.




All in all, Jim, Rob & I had a great hike. Next week, we'll try the Arapahoe peaks, but I think the saddle is still snow covered.