Puppet or puppets? 
These days the news that twelve drawings by the young Hitler between 1908 and 1909 will soon be auctioned. "The drawings in charcoal and pencil, are very common. The hand is not secure and the prospects are not perfect, "said Michael Liversidge, who teaches history art at the University of Bristol. "There is no trace of artistic genius. But if the Academy had admitted him, Hitler could have become a decent painter. " The fact that the Academy is not admitted. He tried it for two times in succession but both were rejected. The rejection, for which he dreamed of becoming a great and famous painter, was a real trauma. According to historians, probably never a rejection was so fraught with consequences. But the professors could not have known, as well as the young Hitler did not know what would become, what he would do in his life nor that of others. Generally
biographies of the men who subjugate nations, mostly written after the event, describing them as superhuman heroes, now with clear ideas and a well-defined and inevitable fate. But the real facts, not the altered dall'agiografia, tell different things. The notorious German dictator is no exception. Take his Italian counterpart, Mussolini. Men's bloody history, mystery and, above all, contradictory. He graduated from Salesian felt for some time being a teacher in school, but with poor results. Anyone who wants to "break the backs" to half the world had to surrender before a second grade because, by his own admission, had not been able "to solve since the beginning the disciplinary problem. " An apostle of socialism, which incites people to riot, it turns into an uncompromising nationalist, a devout lover of order and discipline. The future advocate of the Lateran Pacts, first discovered his "road" in journalism hot and anticlerical. Calls himself "the real heretic" and accused the priests of being the "blacks gendarmes at the service of capitalism." An ordinary family man, but with lovers and illegitimate children to be interned in an asylum, if the opportunity calls for it. It was not a standard of consistency. He wanted to succeed in life more than anything else but not for the strength of his ideas, which could also be sacrificed. He was an opportunist and certainly for a long time was in search of their own way. Even thought of emigrating to Brazil, as in so many had done in his country. He also took violin lessons ("I have a job if I become good stock") and after trying to escape all'arruolamento, asked to be allowed to attend the cadet officers. His application was rejected. Too bad. Better a bad officer a cynical dictator. Better still, a musician, at most, would hurt the ears of his listeners.
And Stalin? Not even he knew what would be great. In his youth he was many things: the revolutionary and journalist, poet and womanizer, a good choir and a priest passed away. Exactly. This fierce protagonist of the last century, who made him kill as many Russians of Hitler himself, not in war, but only because I do not think like him or they could put it in shadow, he did extend the death penalty to children of twelve years, this tyrant arid and devoid of scruples, he attended the first religious school in his country and then, from 1894 to 1899, the seminary of Tiflis. We imagine the Stalin who studies religion and recite prayers? Yet it was so. Indeed, in the first year of seminary student he distinguished himself as a model, as valuable content and as a poet. A good poet. Donald Rayfield, a professor of Russian literature and Georgian at Queen Mary University London, who has translated his poems into English, said without sarcasm, that "it is even possible to find purely political reasons not to mourn his passing from poetry to revolution." He, too: if he had the priest or poet, you would find so many murders on his conscience. 26 million, to be precise. Recalling his past, he says, "If it were not for Lenin, I would have been a chorister and a seminarian." As a sort of postscript, my mind goes well with Putin, at least for the moment, can not even remotely be compared to his infamous predecessor, but that in his authoritarian regime to democracy, not ashamed to be forever close the mouth who gets in the wrong way. Well, with the earthquake of the communist regime, he also imagined that he would not even climbed the highest ranking of the nation, and even thought to make ends meet by the taxi driver or trainer of Judo.
Finally, we consider a tyrant of antiquity, one for all but very representative for the sinister reputation which he left to posterity: Nero. Fame, in fact, handed over the class of nobles who by the mob. From careful populist leader, who was, he left a good memory of the people that the day of his death, every year until the twelfth century brought flowers to his grave. Tradition interrupted by Pope Paschal II, to put an end to that custom, ordered the demolition of the mausoleum of Domizi-Enobarbi. Nero can not be denied that his destiny was set out very early. But not for his vocation, but because of the unbridled ambition of his mother Agrippina. Indeed, if it was up to him, probably would never have accepted the power offered by so many dangers and many concerns. In its early years, when the mother was in exile, he was raised by his paternal aunt Domizia Lepida. His first tutor was a dancer, and from these small Lucio learned the love for dance and for the show. But it was not just a matter of 'imprinting , the future emperor was really inclined to the arts world. According to Suetonius, he cultivated a passion for painting and sculpture, but especially for music, song and poetry. "He composed poems with pleasure and without effort and never published, as some insinuate, those of others by pretending to be her." He learned to play the zither and also, curiously, if he drew well in the kitchen. During the pleasant stay at the summer residence of Torre di Giano, I gladly will delight guests with fine delicacies prepared by himself. His famous travel between the islands of Greece was nothing more than a tour . On board a luxury galley entertained his guests, including the astonished notables of the cities visited, with its representations art. A more serious accusation that moved his detractors was not the cruelty but that competed charioteer, who performed as a singer, who made the dancer. If he had been left to follow his inclinations, instead of forcing him to exercise the task of the government at the corrupt court of Rome, today his name would be associated with a less well-known left.
seems short, that dictators are not calling up with a very clear and straightforward, not being a separate species and predestined from the rest of mortals. Although historically it is a fact that many of them had family conditioning and attitude of mind (I'd say the physique du rôle ) who helped them climb to power and maintain it. The violence was alien to him. Alexander, the father of Mussolini, was an exponent of socialism ruffian, anarchic and violently anti-clerical di Romagna. Vissarion, the father of Stalin, he had the habit of alcohol and a quarrelsome nature. In moments of anger unleashed violence on his wife and son, still beardless, in one of these fights did not hesitate to throw him a knife. And stabbed died in a tavern during a drunken brawl. Also died in a tavern Alois, Hitler's father, while he was drinking his usual glass of wine. It was there that he preferred to stay rather than when they worked at home. He was described as bitter, unpleasant and angry. In family behaved like a tyrant. He screamed, yelled and beat her children, as his wife, with her was very rough and rarely spoke to her. Themselves, these future dictators, had a character far from easy. Little Adolf is described as an intelligent child but stubborn and moody. In a nutshell were already present in him those traits that are growing exasperation suspiciousness, the litigation, the collericità, the intolerance of the slightest criticism. The young Benito was impatient with the rules, had a quarrelsome and moody character and came to stab an older classmate. Of his peers said he "does not argue, beat." Perhaps he had innate cynical vein, but he did not do much to counter it. When he was at the front during the First World War, managed to leave stunned his superiors for the benevolence of its violence, as when killed by a grenade a few Austrians who smoked quietly at night in their trenches. When the captain asked him the reason for the gesture, since those guys at that time did not constitute a danger but they were just smoking and talking about their girlfriends, Mussolini replied with grim irony, "Mr. Captain, and then we all go for a walk in a tunnel in Milan, which is better. " How surprising then the cynical grounds that gave Badoglio years later to justify the entry into the war: "You do not understand, I need a few thousand dead to sit at the table of peace. " It was not the most ruthless dictators, the day after his death, Stalin said: "With the death of Mussolini disappears one of the greatest politicians that must be criticized only for not having made the wall of his opponents." The young Joseph did we mention that, although exaggerated, attempted to stab the father. In the seminar, after the first year of acclimatization, expressed impatience with the methods and rules in use there, medieval and aggravated the already rebellious spirit in him. Instead of learning theology, in that school he honed his skills as a cynical, he learned the concealment and methods of control of persons and consciences. As one historian observed, the seminary he learned to handle the ideas "careful with the indifference of those who do not look that good but the right one." At that point it was ready to serve the revolution, or if we prefer, to bring the revolution to their service. And in the name of high ideals immediately gave it to vile and unscrupulous actions: the robberies, extortion, to arson, murder, etc..
Despite the negative elements of the context and character, was their path to? The story of their childhood and their youth shows that their was a troubled path but not required. Often the mothers were loving and religious. Ekaterina Geladze, Stalin's mother, worked hard as a laundress, a cook and a seamstress to allow the child to study. He was very pious and tied to the Orthodox religion, and his great desire was that his son would embrace the priestly vocation. The abandonment of the seminar by Joseph would cause great sorrow that we always carry. When his son visited her on his deathbed, to explain his position he said: "I'm like a czar." She said: "It would have been better if you had become a priest." Even Rosa Maltoni Mussolini's mother, was a woman of faith. He tried to pass on their values to his sons went better with Arnaldo, Jadwiga but had little luck with Benito. He also made sacrifices to do this study at the Salesian College of Faenza and somehow avoiding the influence of his father. Pölzl Klara, Hitler's mother devoted herself to the care of the house and children. He was a devout Catholic and attended church regularly. The young man was very attached to Adolf. In addition to the school of the nearby abbey, he shall also attended the church. Actively. He served Mass as an altar boy, was a good part of the choral voices and took violin lessons from a Benedictine Father. Later he confessed that during those solemn liturgies, which also gave his contribution, he felt strong emotions. In 1904, when he was 15, during the catechesis for confirmation, even Hitler pondered for a few months to become a priest. Even Nero had his chances. It was not lucky with his mother but he had an aunt who loved him well, and Agrippina, conscious of the influence exerted on the sister-boy, thought to eliminate the charge of conspiracy against the emperor. At trial, was called to testify against her aunt. He knew that his false testimony would have sealed the fate of the joint and lost a dear affection, but he also knew that by saving his aunt would have jeopardized his life. He made the choice easier, though painful, and then began its gradual corrupting. At least in the early years of his empire, Nero pursued a political agenda aimed at improving the conditions of the working classes, and can not be excluded that at his intentions were sincere and not polluted, and thereafter, by intent and populist demagogy. But the continuing violence and the dissolute life they decided the course of its downward slide.
can not therefore say that these men were not responsible for their choices and thereby their actions. For if their journey was not required they were not even their choice, at least those basics. The fact that their paths were not required does not mean, however, that they were somehow guided. Striking fact, scouring the biographies of these men and even more their autobiographies, the presence of certain circumstances that facilitated a useful tool to achieve (or at least to create the conditions to achieve) decisive steps towards the conquest of power. Let's book Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler
that encompasses all his delusional thinking, his political program and his autobiography. Among the many episodes, here he tells one that, as he says, decided a few weeks of its future. He felt attracted to the art, in particular, as we said, from painting and architecture. His father, however, criticized these ambitions and more specifically designed for him a intended use. Perspective that the young Adolf simply abhorred. Then something happened that allowed the events to satisfy the inclinations of the boy. He recounts: "A sickness suddenly came to me for help, which in a few weeks decided my future and put an end to the protracted conflict. A serious lung disease medical advice to suggest to my mother never let me, on any terms, to make office life. For the same reasons, the attendance at the technical school was to be suspended for at least a year. What I had wanted for so long in silence, that for which I had always fought, had actually done now, suddenly, almost by itself. Under the impression of my illness, my mother agreed to take off later than the technical school, and let me attend the Academy. " To underline that "almost by itself." The Academy, as we know, he admitted it and so he found himself in mid-stream. He went to Vienna, as did his father as a boy, to seek his execution. The conditions were different, however. Excluding the academy, there remains the architecture school, but he could not access it because he had not completed the technical school. Look for a job, not even talking about it. His life in the imperial capital was therefore characterized by gimmicks and hardship. The poverty led him to stay in makeshift housing and even result in the dorm, and hunger became his "faithful companion". The Vienna years proved useful to him wicked and absorb the spirit of the time, starting with the pan-Germanism and antisemitism, a true "intellectual fashion" on everyone's lips and propaganda from books and magazines. Without the experience Viennese would miss the thrust and the ideological basis to make the Fürer Hitler's German Reich. In this event, as in many others, he saw a transcendent will that he had predestined to play that role. He believed elected and protected by God even if he probably was not clear who this "god" who headed his way. To pursue this issue can be found in Article
The real puppeteer. Thinking about the enormous power that these men "Providence" concentrated in their hands is easy to think of them as the undisputed puppeteers. But if the real puppet master is "Satan, the god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4), then it is a fact that they too are puppets. Puppet makers, however, of their actions. Format is used with their permission to do the dirty work, and then thrown away. Interchangeable. Because even the power of men is ephemeral. When asked to give its opinion on the celebrations for the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, John Le Carré, on that wall he had built his fortune as a novelist, said that these ceremonies had been given an infinite sadness. "That parade of former powers of the world that ghosts seemed to have come from nowhere to commemorate something that seemed not to remember anything." It was only twenty years and yet those great leaders seemed disoriented and bruised commemorate themselves rather than the wall, looked like the living dead, a shadow of what they were. It was only twenty years, even when Mussolini gave his last interview in his office at the Prefecture of Milan. His face bore traces of fatigue, seemed much older. They seemed well far away the days on which sounded the slogan: "If fate is against us ... Too bad for him." The crowds had vanished, the dialogue with the squares had revealed a mutual deception, an illusion. "I concluded that I overestimated the intelligence of the masses. In the dialogues that many times I had with the crowds, I had the conviction that the screams that followed my questions were a sign of consciousness, understanding of evolution. Instead, it was collective hysteria ...". Il Duce and the crowds were manipulated each other and all of them had been exploited by the "god of this world."
Oh yes, the crowds! The other side of the square. The other puppets, which are also responsible for their actions and to which shall be required of the account. No tyrant can be used as an excuse, not only because no one can force anyone to violate their conscience, but because no dictator can seize power and hold it without a majority that shares his ideals, or that otherwise do not be offended. Dote essential for a leader, and even more of a despot, is the ability to catch the mood of its people. He knows how to ride their prejudices, their fears, their aspirations. He knows that only he can convince them to achieve their deepest desires. Otto Strasser said of Hitler: "His words hit the target like an arrow, and he puts his finger on the problem of everyone, free his unconscious, lays bare his most secret aspirations, he says what everyone want to hear more. " However, the consensus is created only if there is a common interest, if there is a climate of complicity. Often the dictator wins the election, there is a majority vote and that it accepts its program of abuse. In general it was complicit in criminal activity, to the detriment of someone, in this case of a minority, or something, what are the moral principles and rules that do not identify more and end up star tight. History is not made by a man only but always by a community. In the aftermath of the death of Mussolini, the writer Elsa Morante wrote a diary entry very significant, in which perfectly identified this relationship of complicity between the Italians and the tyrant from whom they had left to govern. I think it useful to bring back this set of considerations is an excerpt:
"During his career, Mussolini was spotted several times for crimes that, in the presence of a free and honest people, would have earned if not death, shame, condemnation and deprivation of all authority of government (but a free and honest people would never put the government a Mussolini). Among these crimes include, for example: the suppression of freedom, justice and constitutional rights of the people (1925), the murder of Matteotti (1924), aggression Abyssinia, recognized by Mussolini as a subsidiary of the League of Nations, a company which Italy was bound by Patti (1935), the disenfranchisement of the Jews, Italian citizens absolutely equal to all others until that day (1938). All of these were crimes of Mussolini or tolerated or even encouraged and applauded.
Now, a nation that condones the crimes of his boss, an accomplice to these crimes. If we encourage and applaud them, worse than an accomplice, you instigator of these crimes. Because the people tolerate applauded and encouraged these crimes? A portion of cowardice, insensitivity to some moral, some for cunning, one part self-interest or Machiavellianism. There was also a minority that opposed, but it was so small that not worth mentioning. Until Mussolini was victorious in full, the people looked at this minority members as enemies of the people and the nation, or at best like fools (word national highly prized by the Italians). He realized the majority of the Italian people that these acts were crimes? Almost always, he realized, but the Italian people cosiffatto to give its votes to the rather strong at the right, and if you do choose between self-interest and duty, even knowing what would be his duty, it chooses its own advantage.
Mussolini, mediocre man, rough, out of the culture of eloquence rather vulgar, but easy to effect, was and is a perfect example and mirror of contemporary Italian people. In a free and honest people, Mussolini was at most the leader of a party with a modest following not too bright and the author of articles in the newspaper his party's long-winded. Would have remained a provincial character, a bit 'ridiculous because of his manners and attitudes, and offensive to good taste of the educated people because of his bombastic style, shameless and awkward. But perhaps, not being stupid, in a free and honest, you would be better educated and trained and moderate and would have done the best shape at the end. In Italy, he was the Duce. Why is it difficult to find a better and more comprehensive example of Italian ".
extraordinary relevance of a page that does not show at all its 65 years later. The Morante takes the 'esprit of a people who, apparently, does not learn from their mistakes and therefore is destined to repeat them. Had not yet climbed the cliff, and now there is already flung headlong. What is even more frightening that the mechanisms of corruption causing a vicious cycle that accelerates the screw toward the abyss. A people who you choose as leader a man corrupt and lets legislate puts him and his system to best example to inspire them, and so even more quickly the company is corrupt. A corrupt society in its examples and its institutions can only adversely affect individuals who compose it, even those not particularly inclined to evil, but that can easily be influenced by its rules and its values. Sociologist Philip Zimbardo called this influence that turns normal people into bad people Lucifer Effect. "It is not enough - he says - to focus only on the perpetrators of evil, but also on the conditions of the system that supports and maintains the habit evil. I mean the values \u200b\u200bassociated with cultural, legal, politics, history, which empower the people who behave so bad. "
If Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Nero had been realized in art, craft or profession for which, we have seen, or had shown inclination, however, interest would be better men? Maybe so, because if absolute power corrupts absolutely, they have been subjected to greater stresses and temptations. Or maybe not, because the path of good or evil is done in small steps, one step at a time. Before handing over to the great temptations, there is the temptation to children. There goes toward the abyss at the cost of many compromises with his conscience, at first then more and more difficult to make easier, perhaps trying to convince yourself that you are doing your best, because as the adage goes, the road of 'abyss is paved with good intentions. And the world, without them, would be a better place? I think not. Because their work would be performed by others. On the other troubled souls and rebels who have succumbed to a bad design even seeing in the sign of the election. It certainly gives the creeps to think that behind any painter, poet, musician, journalist, cook or priest can hide in power a brutal despot, but so is. It is part of the solemn game of life, we make use of the freedom that is granted to us all and which one day we will have to be accountable.
These days the news that twelve drawings by the young Hitler between 1908 and 1909 will soon be auctioned. "The drawings in charcoal and pencil, are very common. The hand is not secure and the prospects are not perfect, "said Michael Liversidge, who teaches history art at the University of Bristol. "There is no trace of artistic genius. But if the Academy had admitted him, Hitler could have become a decent painter. " The fact that the Academy is not admitted. He tried it for two times in succession but both were rejected. The rejection, for which he dreamed of becoming a great and famous painter, was a real trauma. According to historians, probably never a rejection was so fraught with consequences. But the professors could not have known, as well as the young Hitler did not know what would become, what he would do in his life nor that of others. Generally 
