The Psychological Portrait Of Trump, by an American Diplomat in 1940

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I been doing a voracious amount of reading of late. I mentioned some of the titles I read during February and so far in March I have completed Tom Segev’s Soldier’s Of Evil which is about the commandants of the Nazi Concentration Camps, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s “Fascism: a Warning,” Ian Kershaw’s “Luck Of the Devil” which is about the attempt to kill Hitler in July 1944, Kati Marton’s ”Wallenberg: The Incredible True Story Of a Man Who Saved Thousands of Jews,” Max Hasting’s Bomber Command; Volume Nine Of the Nuremberg Trials, the Complete Proceedings, the Case Against Goering, and today William Russell’s Berlin Embassy. 

All are worth the read, but Russell’s book is fascinating because it deals with the observations of an American diplomat in Berlin during the 1930s and early 1940s. His primary duties dealt with immigration which alone make the book a must read in the age of President Trump’s despotic anti-immigrant policies, which are starting to make the U.S. policy limiting Jewish entry into the country look positively moral.

Russell makes a number of observations about the various Nazi leaders. But when I read these words about Hitler I could not help but think of the current observations of former staff members, diplomats, civil servants, and journalists of President Trump I was dumbfounded. Never before have I seen a description of Hitler by one of his contemporaries so fit the attitudes and actions of President Trump. Russell wrote:

”This is the man who has in his hands a power greater than that ever held by any ruler in history —a power multiplied by the airplane, the radio, the fast printing presses. He is uncontrolled, he does not have to give account to anybody, he crassly and ruthlessly conceals his every failure, he puffs himself up with every success. Today he follows an impulse. Tomorrow he condemns it as wrong —without admitting that he has been wrong. To promise something and never to do it; to forget things which were never meant seriously; to break every promise but to faithfully keep every threat. That is the psychological picture of Der Fuehrer.” 

The rest nay thing missing was the Twitter tirades, but then Twitter was unknown in 1940.

So, I go back to work tomorrow, at least part time with all of the medical and physical therapy appointments I will continue to have the next few months before my retirement.

Peace,

Padre Steve+