Young Adolf, seen here in happier times. Note absence of malice.

With the recent discovery of Adolf Hitler’s Berlin bunker diary, scholars and skinheads alike have been combing the pages for insights into why the charismatic German Chancellor and spawn of Satan unleashed such evil. His diary was unearthed quite inadvertently when Disney broke ground for a new theme park in Berlin called “Maus Haus”. The handwritten journal catalogues how Hitler’s formerly unshakable belief in Aryan supremacy, miraculously transforms itself into a muddle of anxiety, so that ironically, by the end of the diary he sounds less like the ruler of the Master Race and more like a kvetching Jew. The same accounting firm that supervised the Oscar voting process (PricewaterhouseCooper) authenticated the diary, so we know it’s legit. Of course verification was made easier because of Hitler’s telltale handwriting – he dotted all his i’s with little swastikas.

Historians wonder what motivated Hitler. They speculate on Hitler this, and Hitler that. What I wonder is why Hitler is always referred to simply as “Hitler” and never as “Mr. Hitler”, as in, “Mr. Hitler then decided to invade his neighbor Poland.” Wait! Oh I see why. Mr. Hitler humanizes Hitler. Historians want to eliminate the possibility of a buoyant and fatherly “Mr. Hitler” rallying his nation to find their greatness after the humiliation of WWI. But one can easily imagine a title-less “Hitler” fanatically leading Germany down an inglorious path of self-destruction. Maybe that’s why there’s no Mr. Genghis Khan or Mr. Vlad the Impaler.

In April 1945 as the Russians were closing in on Berlin, Hitler’s “Deutschland über alles” persona recedes, and a more contemplative Fuhrer begins to emerge. In the diary, Mr. Hitler (See it doesn’t sound right. Let’s try that again.) In the diary, Hitler (much better) lowers his martial facade and attempts to explain himself; obviously with an eye towards posterity. It is at once illuminating and damning and in the end he still comes across as a frustrated artist with a pathological Napoleonic complex.

All the malcontents were there in the bunker: “girlfriend” Eva Braun, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and his family, Luftwaffe Reich Marshall Herman Göring, Triumph of the Will movie producer Leni Riefenstahl and various other Nazinistas.

It was a bleak time for the once invincible brain trust. Their glorious Third Reich was going to fall about 988 years short of the envisioned 1000 year reign. So from 30 feet below the surface of war torn Berlin, in a steel-reinforced concrete crypt, here are the last cryptic words of Adolf Hitler:

19 April  – It’s oppressive down here. My lumbago is worse than ever and I think I’m beginning to develop a bunker mentality. Perhaps it’s justifiable as there are 30 feet of steel-reinforced concrete between me and the surface. Oh well. Regrets? I’ve had a few, and then again, too few to mention. Despite Eichmann’s “We-can-pretend-to-be-exchange-students-in-Argentina” escape plan, I’ll probably never live to taste Gulden’s Spicy Brown Mustard again.

I really hope the Americans get here first. The Russians are such bad drunks, especially when they’re drinking kerosene. I’ve instructed our women to shave their heads and apply their make-up to look more like Eleanor Roosevelt, but I’m sure the Russians will rape them anyway. Our best and brightest frauliens reduced to livestock. What misfortune? Could it have something to do with me? The Americans are more benign. They’ll only steal back all the art I stole from France. 

20 April  –Today is my birthday and do you think anybody remembered? Just some feeble surprise party at 11 pm. I’m merely an afterthought to these people. I brought them continental conquest, autobahns and the Volkswagen. They bring me a glockenspiel. I never get what I really want. Instead it’s just more bad news about collapsing fronts and vanquished troops. Just once I’d like to hear them sing “Happy birthday dear Dolfy” and not “Sieg Heil Mein Fuhrer.” The last warm fuzzy I got was a caterpillar in my Strudel.

Leni Riefenstahl is trying to explain to me some kind of joke comparing Reich Marshall Göring to Rice Marshall Hirohito of Japan. Really? Word play – at a time like this?

Eva is concerned for the zoo animals that haven’t been fed for days, I told her not to bother me with details; I’ve got an empire to crumble.

Watercolor by Adolf when he was young and unpolluted.

21 April – Is it too late for me to turn over a new leaf? Could the world look upon me in a different light? I’ve always enjoyed painting. If only those Jews in Austria hadn’t rejected my paintings so many years ago I could’ve gotten in to University and maybe we wouldn’t all be in this pickle. I was a talented painter and that’s how I’d like to be remembered. Adolf Hitler – painter of light. Oh well, a tyrant can dream can’t he?

Speaking of that, I had that dream again last night where bathing Rhine maidens were singing “Springtime for Hitler,” while nearby a battalion of soldiers were goose-stepping and a gaggle of geese were soldier-stepping – very confusing. I wonder what Freud would think. Himmler believes my dream signifies our acceptance into Valhalla as heroic warriors. Himmler thinks a lot of things. I think were all going straight to hell which would be an improvement over our present condition.

For the record, the death camps were his idea. What was I to do? He was very popular with his men and I needed his support. When you’re planning world domination you can’t afford a civil war on the home front. Megalomania also has its practical considerations.

I haven’t had to share a bathroom since WWI. That Göring is going to kill us all –how can a German be sauerbraten intolerant? Really wish we opted for a fan.

And now I am hungry and would kill for some Jewish Rye. In fact I have.

22 April – Today I wandered……lonely as a cloud.

23 April – Who would ever have guessed Göring was a homosexual and quite an accomplished one at that? Yikes! The guy is faster than a blitzkrieg – uhh from what I’m told.

Bormann has gone high and to the left. He just sits in his chair, staring at the chips in the concrete and muttering, “Great seats Dolf, great seats.”

Eva started in again with her, “I understand why you have to commit suicide, but why do I have to commit suicide? I didn’t invade Poland. I didn’t start pogroms.” She is suffocating me. Eva gives me no space at all. And even if she did our so-called “Chancellor’s Suite” is really just a 10’ X 10’ cubicle. Tonight she wants me to take her to the theater. I don’t have the heart to tell her it’s now a morgue. Still, on Wednesday I will marry her.

Sometimes I wish I had been born a Laplander.

24 April – Tried to sleep in this morning. Couldn’t. General Katzenjammer’s kids are driving me crazier.

25 April – It’s raining outside again – mostly mortar shells with a 50% chance of bombing.

Well today was the day I was to be betrothed, but I got cold feet. Besides the wind was kind of taken out of my sails by Göring’s bachelor party. His Marlene Dietrich impression is frightening – life is a cabaret my ass. Eva is seething.

I’m so misunderstood. Nobody knows the real me. I’m all about autobahns, Volkswagens and torch lit parades. The lampshades were Goebbels idea –that pagan bastard. He was beaten as a child. You know his son Siegfried cross dresses, and his wife Gertrude thinks I should be more sensitive to Siegfried’s plight. I’m Hitler damn it! I don’t deal with transgender issues.

I’m not the monster they think I am in Warsaw. My hopes for world domination also included a kind of European Union featuring a single Euro currency with my picture on it. Mussolini’s picture would be on the ½ pfennig. Could he have been any less help? They lost to Ethiopia. He’s such a BM. Get it? BM, Benito Mussolini. Leni was right, this word play can be fun. Well you know what they say, “One door closes, another one opens.” Still, it’s hard to be cheerful when dinner is courtesy of the primate exhibit at the old Berlin Zoo. Musn’t let Eva know. 

26 April – You know, if you think about it, I stack up pretty well against the current crop of world leaders:

FDR – Double-whammy; not only is he crippled, he’s also dead.

Churchill – Winnie’s a depressed old drunk. Ask Hess.

Stalin – Like me a homicidal maniac, but he kills his own people. At least I only kill my enemies.

Rice Marshall Hirohito – Oh I get it now. Rice Marshall, of Japan. Funny. Anyway he is totally delusional (Freud told me this). He sets himself up as God. How does he get away with that Theocracy crap? I mean saying Heil Hitler is one thing, but forcing your son to address you as the “All-being” is completely corrupt, and believe me, I know corrupt.

People only know about my wrath through the media. Dr. Goebbels did his elfin best to get my message out but was hamstrung by my tendency to mass murder. There are really many unpublished layers to my rage.

27 April – That fatuous wannabe author Colonel Rowling is at it again. He’ll tell anyone who will listen about the new occult book he’s writing featuring Heinrich Potter, an adolescent wizard who searches for a sorcerer’s stone. This is literature? When Rowling approaches me I tell him I have to practice my “air harmonica” and disappear into my bunker. Such vacuous sorcery is for Himmler, the high priest of Nordic mysticism, who will listen to Rowling drone on and on about broomsticks and Quidditch. Me –a muggle? Forget it.

I have always tried to do right. Will anyone understand that? Mama Hitler didn’t raise a fool; just a pathologically motivated underachiever with an inferiority complex (again, these are Freud’s words, not mine). Freud’s dead of course and Einstein’s lucky he got out when he did because there’s only room for one genius in Germany capable of warping time and space.

I will admit to some mistakes. The pogo-stick cavalry and the flying tank never quite got off the ground. And the 1936 Olympics were a national embarrassment when that Nubian sprinter Jesse Owens ran away with 4 gold medals – and in our Olympiastadion to boot.

28 April – Volumes will be written about me and somehow I can’t shake the feeling I shook the world in a way that was not appreciated. Life has been unfair to me. I mean once the ball got rolling even I couldn’t stop it and by the time Dietrich left for Hollywood we knew the party was over. I couldn’t settle for beautiful and cultured France. No, I had to have muddy and brutish Russia too. What was I thinking?

29 April – This morning Goebbels barges in and declares, “Autobahn Good, Russian invasion Bad.” A runtier little cretin never existed. I’m thinking of having him shot before his scheduled suicide tomorrow.

There are some things people should know about me. I’m an old school cuddler from way back. All I really wanted was what everyone else wanted – a little hemisphere to call my own and perhaps a race of people to adore me. Is that so wrong?

And somehow I just can’t escape the feeling that in the future there will be very few Hitler’s in the phone book.

Eva and I were married today. The chaplain pronounced us Emperor and wife. Eva had Mr. & Mrs. Hitler stationery made up. She’s such an optimist. To no one’s surprise, Göring caught the bouquet. We honeymooned in Himmler’s cell. What’s a G-spot?

30 April – Well this is probably my last entry, as Göring wants to play charades and Rowling wants to discuss his book again. Eva and I may just end it now. If there is an afterlife I fully expect to be reincarnated as Golda Meier’s truss. Oy vey! Russian voices on the radio – the end is near – someone get my Luger.

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