What Me Worry: The “New York Times” and Hitler in 1924

Neuman1In a recent blog entry, I wrote that nobody—not even H. G. Wells—would have predicted in 1914 that, less than 20 years later, a megalomaniacal, anti-Semitic dictator would seize power in enlightened Germany.

Now, I find that that bastion of prognostication, the “New York Times,” actually implied it was impossible in 1924. The wording of this article, which I found on the Internet, sounded anachronistic to me from the 1920s, but I paid the Grey Lady to confirm that it actually appears:

Hitler Tamed by Prison
Released on Parole, He is Expected to Return to Austria.

Berlin. Dec. 20 (1924) — Adolph Hitler, once the demi-god of the reactionary extremists, was released from imprisonment at Fortress Landsberg, Bavaria, today and immediately left in an auto for Munich. He looked a much sadder and wiser man today than last Spring when he, with Ludendorff and other radical extremists, appeared before a Munich court charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government.

His behavior during imprisonment convinced the authorities that, like his political organization, known as the Völkischer, was no longer to be feared. It is believed he will retire to private life and return to Austria, the country of his birth.