Christina Poppy wrote:
>
> myriad books exist attempting to -explain- hitler.  but i think bob's
> point is well taken--none of these books have succeeded, and they have
> amounted to a lot of tinkering with facts, confusing how the man actually
> was.  maybe there is no actual knowing: lots of possibilities, and a good
> amount of ideas generated, but still no objective proof.  we sit looking
> in all these directions, but still see no flashing lights.
 
I think Szymborska does it pretty good.
 
        HITLER'S FIRST PHOTOGRAPH
 
And who's this little fellow in his itty-bitty robe?
That's tiny baby Adolf, the Hitler's little boy!
Will he grow up to be an L.L.D.?
Or a tenor in Vienna's Opera House?
Whose teensy hand is this, whose little ear and eye and nose?
Whose tummy full of milk, we just don't know:
printer's, doctor's, merchant's, priest's?
Where will those tootsy-wootsies finally wander?
To a garden, to a school, to an office, to a bride?
Maybe to teh Buergermeister's daughter?
 
Precious little angel, mommy's sunshine, honey bun.
While he was being born, a year ago,
there was no dearth of signs on the earth and in the sky:
spring sun, geraniums in windows,
the organ-grinder's music in the yard,
a lucky fortune wrapped in rosy paper.
Then just before the labor his mother's fateful dream.
A dove seen in a dream means joyful news--
if it is caught, a long-awaited guest will come.
Knock knock, who's there, it's Adolf's heartchen knocking.
 
A little pacifier, diaper, rattle, bib,
our bouncing boy, thank God and knock on wood, is well,
looks just like his folks, like a kitten in a basket,
like the tots in every other family album.
Sh-h-h, let's not start crying, sugar.
The camera will click from under that black hood.
 
The Klinger Atelier, Grabenstrasse, Braunen.
And Braunen is a small but worthy town--
honest businesses, obliging neighbors,
smell of yeast dough, of gray soap.
No one hears howling dogs, or fate's footsteps.
A history teacher loosens his collar
and yawns over homework.
 
=============================================
End of poem. Me..
 
My wife tells me that Hitler was an adorable baby in his pictures.
--
I've been able to string more words into fewer ideas than anybody I
know, and I'm continuing to do that.
     - Alan Greenspan to the Senate Budget Committee, Sept 23, 1998