31 December 1939 -- Shirer, Hitler, Trump, and Godwin's Law, plus a guest appearance by George Wallace

This is apropos of nothing in this blog's regular subject matter except that I've been reading William Shirer's Berlin Diary lately. He was reporting around Europe at the same time my folks were honeymooning down the Danube in 1939. He was more experienced and much better informed than they were, and his takes on the impending war are a contrast to their sunny predictions.

I'm guessing he and Murray met in 1941 when both were back in New York working for CBS, because the copy I have is autographed to Murray.

Berlin, December 31 

A flood of New Year's proclamations from all and sundry -- Hitler, Göring, Himmler, etc. Hitler holds out hope of victory to the people in 1940. Says he: "United within the country, economically prepared and militarily armed to the highest degree, we enter this most decisive year in German history ... May the year 1940 bring the decision. It will be, whatever happens, our victory." 

He goes to extreme lengths to justify his war, and if the German people were not so poisoned by propaganda and suppression of the slightest factual news from abroad, they would laugh. He says the "Jewish reactionary warmongers in the capitalist democracies" started the war! Words have no more meaning for the man nor, I fear, for his people. He says, "The German people did not want this war." (True.) "I tried up to the last minute to keep peace with England." (False) "But the Jewish and reactionary warmongers waited for this minute to carry out their plans to destroy Germany." (False.)

...
Cold, and a coal shortage. The office boy said tonight we were out of coal at the office and that there was no more coal to be had. [bolding mine]

--Berlin Diary, p. 270-271 

One question I had when reading this entry on New Year's Eve 1939 was, what if Hitler and crew had Twitter? When Shirer says "words have no more meaning for the man," I can't help but think of a current "wartime president."And though I know Godwin's Law about bringing Hitler into a discussion, I am also aware that Godwin himself recently retweeted this, which is worth a read:
https://www.newsweek.com/hitler-incompetent-lazy-nazi-government-clown-show-opinion-1408136

And while I'm on the topic of demagogues and how to know them, here's Hunter S. Thompson on George Wallace in 1972:

"The root of the Wallace magic was a cynical, showbiz instinct for knowing exactly which issues would whip a hall full of beer-drinking factory workers into a frenzy -- and then doing exactly that, by howling down from the podium that he had an instant, overnight cure for all their worst afflictions: Taxes? Nigras? Army worms killing the turnip crop? Whatever it was, Wallace assured his supporters that the solution was actually real simple, and that the only reason they had any hassle with the government at all was because those greedy bloodsuckers in Washington didn't want the problems solved, so they wouldn't be out of work. The ugly truth is that Wallace had never even bothered to understand the problems--much less come up with any honest solutions--but the "Fighting Little Judge" has never lost much sleep from guilt feelings about his personal credibility gap. ..." 

[bolding mine]

--Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, p. 275