I , Rochus Misch was Hitler's bunker bodyguard

By OLIVER HARVEY

Chief Feature Writer, in Berlin

HE’S a doddery old man now whose once ramrod-straight back is stooped and whose hair is a snowy white.
As Rochus Misch warmly shakes hands and invites me into his neat, suburban Berlin home, it is hard to imagine him at the centre of one of history’s most murderous regimes.

But as he spreads his black-and-white photos of Nazi Germany over the tablecloth in his living room, his brown eyes flash and his wrinkled face lights up with pride.

For the frail pensioner was once known as Oberscharfuhrer Misch — personal bodyguard of Adolf Hitler and proud SS man.

Now 91, he was at Hitler’s side from the Blitzkrieg conquests of 1940 right through until the last, paranoid days in the Berlin bunker as the Third Reich crumbled in 1945.

He even saw Hitler’s body shortly after the Fuhrer blasted a bullet into his own head. And he is the last survivor of the bunker.

His knowledge of Hitler’s private world was tapped by makers of the new movie Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise.Cruise plays the coup’s real-life ringleader, the aristocratic Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who failed to assassinate the Fuhrer in 1944.

While the thriller’s scriptwriter talked to Misch, Cruise said: “I didn’t want to meet him. Evil is still evil. I don’t care how old you are.”

Misch’s protective housekeeper Christina, 62, breaks from cooking a bratwurst lunch and says: “Cruise doesn’t know anything about Rochus, but already knows that he is evil.
“He should first ask Rochus if he wants to meet him.”

Holding up a print of Hitler — the man he called “the boss” — Misch is more interested in talking about the old days. Born in Opole, Poland, Misch joined a combat division of the fanatical SS elite guard aged 20 in 1937.

Wounded during the conquest of Poland in 1939, he was transferred to Hitler’s elite personal bodyguard, the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.

He tells me: “I was an orphan and brought up by my grandparents. I thought by joining the SS I could become a civil servant.

“Hitler was my Fuhrer like everyone else’s, and I was in awe of him. I found him correct — charming even.”

By 1944 Germany was losing badly in the Second World War and plotters inside the country’s army planned to kill Hitler to spare the Fatherland the full onslaught of the Allies.
On July 20 that year one-armed Stauffenberg placed a bomb in a wooden briefing hut at Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair hideaway in Poland.

Stauffenberg excused himself and left the room before the explosion tore through the hut.
Four people were killed but Hitler was shielded from the blast by an oak conference table and was only slightly wounded.

Today, Stauffenberg, who was executed by firing squad, is a hero to many Germans — but not Misch. He says: “I knew Stauffenberg. He was not a Hitler assassin. He was an assassin, yes, but a comrade assassin.

“He killed comrades. It’s the worst thing a soldier can do. It was not the actions of an officer. He was not even there when the bomb went off. He placed the bag and ran away. That’s no Hitler assassin.”

Misch was on duties in Berlin when the bomb went off.
Staring at a snap of himself in his SS uniform on guard at the Wolf’s Lair in 1944, he adds: “When I got back it was business as usual. There were six of us bodyguards and Hitler seemed the same as ever.

“We had to expect something like that happening. When Hitler was at the Front there were only two or three guards. You could have got him easily.”

Misch stayed loyal to the Fuhrer as the Third Reich crumbled. By January 1945 Hitler had retreated to a cluster of small rooms 40ft underground in Berlin. The bodyguard says: “We were the only witnesses. We were in the bunker, it was small. Not like the media show it.”

Misch, a telephonist in the bunker, adds: “On April 22, 1945, Hitler said, ‘The war is lost. No one is obliged to do anything any more’’.

The Fuhrer married girlfriend Eva Braun inside the bunker on April 29.

The following day, shortly after 3pm, Hitler left his final followers and entered a private room with Braun. Misch said they waited around 45 minutes “for the shot”.

longside other soldiers left in the bunker, he then opened the door.

He says: “I saw Hitler slumped by the table. I did not see any blood on his head. And I saw Eva with her knees drawn up, lying next to him on the sofa.

“Hitler was wrapped in a blanket as I watched. He was then taken outside to be burnt. It was over.”

Misch was captured by the Red Army and sent to Moscow, where he was questioned and tortured.

After eight years in prison camps he returned to Berlin in 1953.
Today, Misch, who was never indicted for war crimes, lives in the same two-storey detached house where he moved with his late wife Gerda in 1942.

On Hitler’s orders a crate of vintage 1927 champagne was delivered there as a wedding gift.
He ran a painting business until his retirement and wrote a book, The Last Survivor. With millions perishing in the Holocaust, does he regret joining the SS?

Misch says: “Nein. I would join again straight away. It was the best troop that ever existed.”
He is estranged from only daughter Birgitta because of his past. She says: “I didn’t want to talk to him or be near him. Never.”

Housekeeper Christina adds: “He only lives in the past. He can’t live without it. People keep writing. It’s because he is the last one, the last witness.”

I've translated the interview from the German. I asked Misch first about his memories of the death of Hitler:

I was standing in the hallway when Hitler took his own life. Because I wanted to go over to the Reichs Chancellery for lunch [the Reichs Chancellery was connected to the Führerbunker by a tunnel], and a colleague had already taken over for me in the telephone room. I was standing in the hallway, asking in the neighboring room if I should bring anything back with me. The other guy said, "No, no, I have everything already," and it was then someone called, someone ... [he searches for the name] ah, it was Linge, Linge, Hitler's butler. He said, "I think it's done." He had heard it.

But of course we were always making mistakes. Our ears played tricks. Down there in the bunker, any loud noise echoing through the concrete sounded like a gunshot. There was so much suspense. We had been waiting, expecting it any minute, for hours. And yet we weren't sure. Because of course, there was always the possibility of a miracle. The miracle would have been England. If England had said, it's not Hitler that's our biggest enemy, rather Bolshevism, they could have rolled right by Berlin all the way to Moscow. Churchill himself said later, "We slaughtered the wrong pig."

And after you realized Hitler was dead?

Well, there was perfect silence. We waited. We waited maybe 20 minutes. But Linge was curious. I was curious. I still don't remember whether it was Linge or Günsche who first opened the door to Hitler's rooms, but one of the two. I was really curious and came forward a few steps. Then somebody opened the second door -- I still don't know who it was, probably Linge. And it was then, as the second door opened, I saw Hitler, dead, lying on a chair. Eva [Braun] on the couch completely clothed. In a dark dress and white, white skin. She was lying back.

So then I said to them, "I'm going to run over and report to the commanding officer." And they said, annoyed, "Well, come right back." So I told them, "Yeah, sure. I'm just saying: I'm a soldier. I have a command to carry out." Then I was on my way over to the Reichs Chancellery, already in the passageway, but I had an uncanny feeling, very scared and uncertain, so I turned around. When I got back they already had Hitler down on the floor. I watched them packing him up, in a blanket. Well, so it went. Then they carried him out, and I went away finally and made the communication to the commanding officer. A little later, one of my comrades said, "If you want, go on up outside, the boss is getting burned." You know, just as planned. And I said, "No, I'm not going up. You go up!" But he said, "No, I'm not going up either, I'm getting out of here." So neither of us went to the cremation.

Do you remember your feelings when you realized Hitler was dead?

We were expecting it. It didn't come as a surprise. We were living in another world at that point. We had so many feelings, fear, hope -- I can't describe it. We had habituated ourselves to the idea of the end. We had a feeling as if we were drunk. To put it bluntly, we didn't give a damn, finally. Nothing made a hell of a lot of difference at that point.

Were you afraid of the future?

One of the guys said to me, "Maybe we'll be shot?" I said, "Why in the world would we be shot?" He said, "The head of the Gestapo was here. He never comes here. Why was he here? Maybe they'll shoot all the witnesses, everyone who knows the boss is dead."

And you know, in fact, they did shoot people. During the burning, two civilians showed up out of nowhere. There was a wall -- on the other side was the Foreign Office, and people were crawling around the city everywhere, running away from the Russians at the time. And those civilians were shot by the Gestapo. They had seen too much. However, in the end they turned out to be a couple of Poles.

Poles?
Yes, they checked their papers. They were Polish, trying to run away. How they got there, gosh, I don't know.

Is that probable, that they were Poles?

Well, they had the passports. One of my comrades from the police commando told me. I know it's strange, but they were Poles. [Misch is silent.]
Right. I'd like to talk a little bit about the new movie portrayal of those last days in the bunker.

Have you seen "Downfall"?

Oh, yeah, I've seen it. [Laughs heartily.] Dramatic operetta. It's all Americanized. All that yelling and screaming; it wasn't like that down there in the bunker. The reality -- it was a death bunker. Everyone whispered down there. A crazy screaming scene never happened.

Hitler never yelled?

Well, at least when the generals were down there, discussing military things, they were very quiet. It's a film, with all the freedoms of a film. It's no documentary.

Are there factual discrepancies, so far as you know?
No, no, just everything exaggerated.
Your character in the film is portrayed seriously thinking of killing himself at the very end, after Hitler and Eva Braun are dead, but then at the last minute he decides not to shoot. Was suicide

something you remember considering very seriously?

It was different than in the film. At the very end, I asked myself: Why am I here? What am I doing now that everyone is dead or gone? But nevertheless, I was still there, one of the only ones left in the bunker, just left there to make sure that everything down in the telephone room continued to work. And then Dr. Naumann said to me that another doctor there, Dr. Stumpfegger, would give me something to drink, or a sort of candy.

And you thought about taking some kind of medical poison like that?

I had always believed -- well yeah, if it's all over, then I have to shoot myself too. And the atmosphere ... at the end, after Hitler was dead, it was so bad. I got a call from General Busse of the 9th Army and he wanted to speak to General Krebs. So I rang through to Krebs and he didn't pick up. So I went to his room and I thought he was sleeping and I tried to wake him, and he fell over. Then I noticed he was dead. I got such a fright! And sitting next to him was Burgdorf. Both of them had taken their own lives. Just before the very end. They were the last of the military, the last people responsible for the military there.

Let's go back in time to your early history: How did you start working as a bodyguard to Hitler?
I was an orphan; both my mother and father died when I was very small. I was the last son, the last of the family, so I wouldn't have been sent to the front, rather behind the lines, to a desk job, supplies and reinforcements, telegraph office, or some such thing. But after I was called up I was injured badly anyway. I was shot in the chest after a failed diplomatic mission in Poland. I was in a convalescent home for a long time, and then came a phone call from the Reichs Chancellery: They needed a young man. At headquarters.

Do you have any particular impressions of Hitler that have stayed with you?
Hitler, to me, was always a completely normal person. He spoke completely normally to me. I lived together with him for five years. I only knew him as a wonderfully good boss, right? I could talk with him. He was always satisfied with us.

Authoritarian?
No, he was never authoritarian. And we were with him day and night; we knew him. He was never without us, day and night. If he wanted something in the night, his servant was asleep, so he called one of us. If he wanted to be awoken an hour later, or to call Eva -- anything. We just had a wonderful boss. We couldn't have wished for better. When I was married he had a case of champagne delivered to my house, this one we're sitting in [gestures to the surrounding rooms].

What were your duties as Hitler's bodyguard?

Strictly speaking, yes, I was a bodyguard to Hitler, that's right, but of course usually there wasn't much to do as bodyguard, so they put us to work at other things, as a courier for example, and then later, during the time in the bunker, I worked at the telephones. There were six of us. We weren't the direct aides. Those were the adjutants. If the boss wanted something, any simple thing, he would go to an adjutant, say, "Hey, I heard Wolfgang Wagner got engaged -- we have to do something for him," and then the adjutant would come to us and tell us: "Get some flowers and deliver them personally to Wolfgang Wagner. He's engaged."

One of the most harrowing scenes in the film is the murder of the Goebbels children [six of them, ages 4 to 12]. What do you remember about the Goebbels family in the bunker?
[Minister of Propaganda Dr. Joseph] Goebbels and the kids arrived suddenly about 14 days before the end. Then Hitler's doctor, Dr. Morell, had to move out so that Goebbels could move in, and his wife lived one story higher, in the adjoining bunker, with the children. But the children came down to play all the time, you know? But when they were too loud we sent them back up. [Laughs.] Usually they were up in the New Chancellery; there were people around up there and they had freedom to move about.

I went up there too, shortly before the end, because the big kitchen was there. Goebbels sat down at a long table with the children. A young man played the harmonica. And Goebbels was saying goodbye to the civilians, with the children; there were so many people there in the New Chancellery, people looking to take shelter there. And it occurred to me for the first time that maybe I should say goodbye, too. That was the moment it became clear to me that Hitler and Goebbels would stay. And Eva Braun and Frau Goebbels had agreed they wouldn't abandon their men either, stay to the end, too. And then plans were made for the children. The other women in the bunker all offered -- Frau Rindell for example, from the office, she said, "Frau Goebbels, if you want to stay here, that's your business, but the children can't possibly stay here..." and Frau Bruns said, "I'll take them to Arnbruck to my sister, as she can't have children -- she would be happy. Please!" and she cried.

You know, we, the service people, we all knew that the children were meant to stay, and what would happen. They would stay and they would die.

Oh, and then of course the aviator, Hanna Reitsch, offered to fly them out as well. She said even if she had to fly back and forth 20 times, she would fly them out. Of course, that's not what happened.

Frau Goebbels, she had to come down to my room to get the children ready [administer the cyanide]. Up above there were so many people around, but down in our rooms there was no one. We ourselves weren't even down there. We only slept there. So she could take care of them on her own. I went out of the room and waited outside. Then Dr. Naumann came out of the room and said to me -- he whispered in my ear -- that if it had been up to him, Dr. Goebbels he meant, then the children wouldn't still be in the bunker, they would be evacuated. And I had seen Naumann with Goebbels up above, and he was probably right. I took him as a trustworthy representative. Goebbels didn't want it. It was Frau Goebbels who did. One must stick with the truth. That's how it was.

The film suggests both parents colluded to kill their children -- misrepresented, in your opinion?
It's all Americanized. That's how the Americans want to see things...

But what about here in Germany? The film was made in Germany for Germans, by Germans, wasn't it?
Oh, the Germans have no idea about anything, either. If I had been in the New Chancellery instead of in the bunker, I wouldn't have any idea either, how that happened with the Goebbels children, how they killed the six children.

How do you think about the recent developments in Germany, the mainstream attempt to come to terms with the Holocaust and on the other hand the modest rise in neo-Nazism since the fall of the Wall?
Next to the site of the bunker they're putting up the big memorial. [The colossal central Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, designed by American architect Peter Eisenman and composed of 2,700 concrete slabs, opens in May 2005.] Two thousand seven hundred concrete blocks; they're allowed that. But I say, how would it be if over there around the corner by the bunker, we put in six blocks, just six? The children of Goebbels were murdered, killed, consciously murdered. Couldn't they be honored, the children? It won't do them any good now, but at the very least we could honor them, put up a sign that says here died six murdered children. Two thousand seven hundred, but six children can't be honored?

Um, the murder of the children was terrible, but for every one of them, 1 million Jews were killed with less reason, to say nothing of the many, many others who died at the hands of the Nazis.

That may be. But I ask you, if Hitler really did all the terrible things people now say he did, how could he have been our Führer? How is it possible?

The million-dollar question. But I do think you'll admit that if there were a memorial to the Goebbels children, it would become a magnet for neo-Nazis.

Ach, "neo-Nazi." No such thing. What does "neo-Nazi" mean? New Nazi, right? There aren't any. That's just a buzzword. What you have are nationally conscious people, people who say, "my fatherland, right or wrong." My fatherland, nothing more, am I right? You British say it, the Swiss say it, the Israelis say it -- "My country," they say. And I'll fight for it. The Israelis are nationalistic people, they defend their region, they defend their people. They have as much right as anyone.

The whole Iraq war isn't about Saddam Hussein, it's about Israel. Israel can't exist on avocados and oranges! A nation lives from business. They have to have money. And the Americans always pay in. This is just my opinion, but why did they occupy Iraq? Supposedly because of atomic bombs? [Laughs.] In my opinion, Iraq is a wealthy oil region, and with this money they can support Israel. They can't keep pumping their own money in forever.

Do you find that over the years, your memories of the time in Hitler's employment weaken? Do you find your memories being hijacked by images and stories you've come across in the 60 years since?

So many of the pictures and so much of what's written about the time is the product of fertile imaginations. For example, Eichinger [the writer and producer of "Downfall"] should have come to me and talked to me like you're doing before he ever made the film. And what he would then make of it would be his business -- accept, reject, or whatever, right? But just talk to me. I always try not to slip into a fantasy as they do. I have to be careful; it can trip me up too. Trying to improve things, make it seem better or more heroic than it was. Of course there's a tendency in that direction.

How do you feel about the attention paid to you in recent times?

I did six [interviews] for the Holocaust Museum in Washington. But that stays in the museum archives; it's not for the public. And then I did two times, two hours [of interviews] for the Goethe Institute in Tel Aviv. They collect that kind of thing. Not to show, just for a rainy day, I guess. The BBC has filmed with me three times. They even went to Moscow and found the suicide request I wrote when I was a prisoner of the Soviets. They were really hardworking. And some young people are making a documentary film about me -- I had to arrange for the woman who does my housekeeping to make a special visit, because they wanted to get some shots of her working around the house. There's continual interest now. I can't believe it. Hitler just won't die. And I'm the only one left to tell.

Do you have regrets about your past?

Well, history is history -- whether it's bad or good or criminal, it doesn't make a difference. An act, a deed, remains part of history forever. You can't change a story, just by blathering on about it, and make it into something other than what it was.

No Men for Old country

The reasons for the rise of LTTE in Sri Lanka

After the bestowing of independence in 1948 the relative peace that prevailed in Sri Lanka in the preceding century was steadily eroded. The process began with the introduction of the “Indian and Pakistan Citizenship Act” and the State sponsored colonization of predominant Tamil areas with Sinhalese “Island Re convicted Criminals (IRC’s)” to weaken the political strength of the Tamils in those parts of the country by the UNP government of D.S.Senanayake and later the venting out of popular Singhalese umbrage against the Tamils by electing S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike for his “Sinhala Only” (a policy of making Singhalese the sole official language) policy in 1956. The treachery of S.W.R.D with regard to the Bandaranaike-Chelvanyagam Pact of 1957 amplified increasingly strained relations between the two races.

These reached a boiling point in May 1958 when riots broke out in Colombo and the provinces; the most notable implication of these pogroms, besides the greater level of antagonism between the races, was that the Tamils began to lose confidence in the Government of Sri Lanka to safeguard them and treat them as equitable citizens. The primary reason was for five days (until the Indian High Commissioner intervened) the government had stood aside and had done nothing. This perception was intensified by the riots of 1977 (where the UNP government of J.R.Jayawardene failed to protect Tamils from Singhalese gangs with the words ‘War or Peace, you decide’), the burning of the Jaffna Public Library (a symbol of Tamil culture and an important repository of original texts relating to the origins of the Tamils).

The role of standardization must not be forgotten; the Jaffna Tamils depended on education for economic advancement. The introduction of standardization in 1973 meant that Jaffna Tamils would lose their niche position in the Civil Service and private sector. In 1969, the Northern Province, which was largely populated by Tamils and compromised 7% of the population of the country, provided 27.5 percent of the entrants to science based courses in Sri Lankan universities. By 1974, this was reduced to 7% (through the ‘standardization handicap’ race). This is repeatedly cited as evidence of State discrimination against Tamils, and hence contributed in undermining the Tamil’s confidence in the State.

By 1983 the Tamils were treated as second-class citizens; their language not recognized, advancement in the civil service limited, discriminated against in terms of education and not protected by their State. Furthermore, they were considered aliens in their own land. This general perception was dominant at even the highest levels of government:

“If there is discrimination in this land which is not their (Tamil) homeland, then why try to stay here. Why not go back home (India) where there would be no discrimination. There are your kovils and Gods. There you have your culture, education, universities etc. There you are masters of your own fate”

- Mr.W.J.M. Lokubandara, M.P. in Sri Lanka’s Parliament, July 1981

This can be considered with ease as a lucid breach of the social contract; the Tamils then felt it their right to rebel and restore their rights. The Vaddukoddai Resolution of 1976 had firmly placed this restoration in terms of a separate sate. A guerilla movement emerged from those dissatisfied and brought the conflict into a new phase.

One of the root causes of the ethnic issue is the feeling of inequality and oppression and for the ethnic conflict to be solved these must be dealt with; however this must be done within a framework considering the mutual hate and the deep rifts created in the last 25 years.

A country deeply divided, over 60,000 dead, a generation (or two) lost, children brainwashed, hatred and above all fear. What can be done? The solution is simple yet concurrently complex. It is based on the cry of the French Revolution “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”; all ethnic groups must be treated as equals. How it is to be achieved? The solution lies in the creation of a modern liberal democratic structure that ensures the rights of all citizens are equally upheld. All citizens must be treated equally. A sense of national identity based on the principle of the nation state rather than ethnicity must be instilled and cultivated.

On a practical level this means that the government should not consider the race of a person for any purpose e.g. the indication of race on national identification is unnecessary and counterproductive. Furthermore, the use of a common non-sectarian language (such as English) should be encouraged. In addition, a culture of principle and policy, not ethnicity, politics must be encouraged. A firm independent judiciary with power to enforce its decisions must be developed. Finally, the state must be secular, in order to prevent discrimination from that direction.

For all of this to occur the legislative, constitutional, administrative and sociological change must occur. The burden lies on the average Sinhala voter (the majority) to elect a government that will ensure that all these goals are achieved. The perceptions of the Sinhala voter must be changed via education and exposure. Only when these goals are achieved and all ethnic groups feel they are equal citizens the “voice of strife” be dumb and only then will “we march to a mighty purpose”, the betterment of all our citizens, united as on.

“The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership….a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures.” - William Fulbright

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something,

And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do,

What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the Grace of God I will do.”

— Edward Everett Hale (1822 -1909)

Secrets of Leadership: Hitler and Churchill

By Andrew Roberts

Andrew Roberts draws comparisons between Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler, and between true inspiration and mere charisma, in an analysis of what leadership entails.

Questions about leadership

What is leadership? How can one person lead one hundred people? Why do we even feel the need to be led? In this time of international crisis, issues concerning the nature of leadership are particularly stark, with many Britons not approving of what their own government is doing - so this is a useful time to analyse the concept.

For generations, people have allowed themselves to be led through the use of a remarkably unchanging leadership vernacular and vocabulary. The same kind of emotional appeal that was used by Richard I in the Crusades, for example, or by Queen Elizabeth I at the time of the Armada, was also employed by Pitt the Younger during the Napoleonic Wars and by Churchill in 1940.

It was an uplifting rhetoric of nationalist sentiment, mixed up with quasi-religious overtones, with the emphasis on real peril and the chances of untarnishable glory should victory be won. Tony Blair is using a similar rhetoric today, and appealing to all the same emotions (bar the crude nationalism), as crisis in relation to Iraq looms ever closer. So is national leadership just a trick of the trade, something that can be learnt almost by rote?

The desire to follow a leader seems to be a common human instinct - a less common instinct is the ability to take on the leadership role. But even when pure Anarchism has existed in political societies - in Barcelona, for example, for a short period during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s - natural leaders have nonetheless continued to come to the fore.

When the normal social order breaks down - you see it occasionally in the stories of shipwreck survivors - the people who emerge, for better or worse, are the ones who can persuade others to do their bidding through the force of their personality. It seems that some people simply have 'it' and others do not - although those who are ambitious to be leaders, but lack the natural gift for it, can perhaps learn some techniques to lend them the appearance of being in command of a situation.

If you analyse four key leaders of the last century - Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King - to discover whether they have any traits in common as leaders, a profound difference emerges between those leaders who were charismatic - Hitler and Kennedy - and those who were genuinely inspirational - Churchill and Martin Luther King. A comparison between Churchill and Hitler, and between true inspiration and mere charisma, gives a useful insight into this difference, and may help in the analysis of what leadership entails

Using or spurning the tricks of the trade

Charisma seems to be something of a harlot's trick, which can be induced by a number of more or less cynical manoeuvres. It's all done with mirrors, yet it rarely fails. Hitler employed searchlights at his rallies, warm-up men before his speeches (principally his minister for culture and popular enlightenment, Joseph Goebbels), and impressively turned-out SS guards - but he wore a deliberately un-dressy uniform himself. He also had a huge office in Berlin that he almost never used, and created photo opportunities that look as naff today as they looked revolutionary then.

To get people to believe that he had a superhuman aura - the aura described by the Greeks as 'charisma' - Hitler also used childish staring tricks, such as looking at the people he was talking to without blinking, and various other basic tricks. It seems that no one is born charismatic, but there are plenty of ways to acquire an aura if you want to.

Churchill, by contrast, spurned such affectations. He had no spin doctors, no speechwriters, no-one to warm up audiences before he spoke. He had his trademarks, it is true - few politicians have ever sported more. Keeping to the Victorian practice - for Churchill was moulded by the Victorian era, which did not end until he was 26 - he copied methods used by politicians such as Gladstone, or his own father Lord Randolph Churchill.

These were designed to make him recognisable to a public that relied on political cartoons in the newspapers for information about their leaders. It was through such cartoons that Victorian politicians achieved what is now known as name-recognition. Churchill's vast hat collection, his bow ties, cigar, cane, and so on, were the props of this established tradition

Leadership style

Churchill was the model of the inspirational politician, not the charismatic one. No one was overawed by Churchill's physical presence in the way they were by Hitler's. The British leader worked from a terraced house in Whitehall - the whole working area of which could fit into Hitler's study in the Reich Chancellery. (The Chancellery, designed by Albert Speer in 1938, had enormous halls - with a combined length of 900ft - coming off the Wilhelmstrasse, solely in order to emphasise its grandeur to visiting diplomats.)

Of the two men, Hitler was actually kinder to his immediate staff than Churchill was to his. In terms of man-management, Hitler was - astonishingly enough - the more considerate boss. Churchill's secretaries often became exasperated by his rudeness and lack of indulgence, whereas the Führer was adored by those who worked closest with him. He remembered their names and birthdays, visited them when they were ill, and they repaid him with lifetime devotion, even after his crimes became generally known. Churchill was loved by his staff because he was 'saving civilisation', not because of his off-hand way of treating them (in 1940 things got so bad, his wife had to remonstrate with him about his manner).

Although Hitler might have been a better people-manager in some ways, his tendency to attempt to micro-manage the Third Reich once the war broke out led directly to his downfall. Whereas in the years leading up to the outbreak of war Hitler took a back seat in terms of administration, after 1939 he insisted on taking decisions that ought to have been left to far more junior officers. At one point during the war in the east he wound up ordering small-scale maps and directing Wehrmacht troop movements all the way down to battalion level.

Churchill did the absolute opposite, although as First Lord of the Admiralty he did get too involved in detail - he enquired into the number of duffel-coats issued to individual ships by their commanders, and gave orders that backgammon rather than cards should be played on Royal Navy vessels. But once the war was underway he managed to concentrate on the bigger picture, concerning himself with the broad strategic sweep of the war rather than the minutiae.

In this, Churchill was greatly helped by the fact that he was not a totalitarian dictator. The British chiefs of staff could stand up to Churchill - and under their chairman Field-Marshal Lord Alanbrooke they frequently did - in a way that would have been inconceivable with the Führer. As a result of Churchill's never once overruling the service chiefs, the grand strategy of the war was run in a rational and logical way that was simply impossible in Nazi Germany.

Fundamental similarities and differences

What both Hitler and Churchill did have in common, however, was a terrific tenacity of purpose. This was forged in their 'wilderness' years - Hitler's in the 1920s, Churchill's in the 1930s - when they were out of office and generally derided by the political classes.

By not altering their message to suit their audience, but by carrying on insisting that they were right, they both garnered huge support when events finally seemed to confirm their view of the political situation. Thus, once economic circumstances changed in Germany in the depression years of the 1930s, and after the British view of appeasement changed when the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, both men were in a position to capitalise on that most satisfying phrase in politics: 'I told you so.'

Hitler's legacy is today confined to the penumbra of politics - to Holocaust-revisionists, BNP thugs and teenage American gunmen. Churchill's legacy, by contrast, has probably never been stronger than today. After the Al-Qaida attacks of 11 September 2001, Americans turned to the British war leader's words as to those of no other statesman.

George W Bush paraphrased him in his State of the Union Address, the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld quoted him at the Pentagon, Mayor Giuliani hailed him at a ceremony to draft in fresh New York firemen to take the place of their fallen comrades. It is not too much to say that Churchill - a man who died 38 years ago - more than any living person, is providing the west with the language it needs for the 'war against terror'.

The struggle between Hitler and Churchill was a struggle towards completely opposite ends. Today one of these leaders is recognised simply as the archetype of what to avoid at all costs. The other is considered of supreme relevance to the world politically, even nearly four decades after his death. One died by his own hand, in the ruins of his capital, where his corpse was hurriedly doused with petrol and set alight. The other died in his ninth decade, loaded with honours and an object of admiration for the entire globe.

The stakes could not have been higher for Hitler and Churchill, and the destinies of both were intimately and ultimately bound up in their profoundly contrasting leadership techniques

Find out more
Books
Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership by Andrew Roberts (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 2002)
Churchill: A Study in Greatness by Geoffrey Best (Penguin, 2002)
Winston Churchill: A Brief Life by Piers Brendon (Pimlico, 2001)
Churchill: The Wilderness Years by Martin Gilbert (Houghton Mifflin Co, 1984)
Hitler: A Study in Tyranny by Alan Bullock (Penguin Books, 1990)
Inside Hitler's Command by Geoffrey Megargee (University Press of Kansas, 2002)
The Nazis: A Warning from History by Laurence Rees (BBC Consumer Publishing, 2002)
Hitler: Hubris 1889-1936 by Ian Kershaw (London, 1998)
Hitler (Introductions to History) by David Welch (UCL Press, 1998)

About the author
Andrew Roberts is author of The Holy Fox, Eminent Churchillians, Salisbury: Victorian Titan and Napoleon and Wellington. He also appears regularly on British television and radio, and writes for The Sunday Telegraph.

Chinese billions in Sri Lanka fund battle against Tamil Tigers

Chinese construction workers build the port at Hambantota that
analysts believe will become a base for its navy

by Jeremy Page, South Asia Times Correspondent

On the southern coast of Sri Lanka, ten miles from one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, a vast construction site is engulfing the once sleepy fishing town of Hambantota.

This poor community of 21,000 people is about as far as one can get on the island from the fighting between the army and the Tamil Tiger rebels on the northeastern coast. The sudden spurt of construction helps, however, to explain why the army is poised to defeat the Tigers and why Western governments are so powerless to negotiate a ceasefire to help civilians trapped on the front line.

This is where China is building a $1 billion port that it plans to use as a refuelling and docking station for its navy, as it patrols the Indian Ocean and protects China’s supplies of Saudi oil. Ever since Sri Lanka agreed to the plan, in March 2007, China has given it all the aid, arms and diplomatic support it needs to defeat the Tigers, without worrying about the West.

Even India, Sri Lanka’s long-time ally and the traditionally dominant power in South Asia, has found itself sidelined in the past two years — to its obvious irritation. “China is fishing in troubled waters,” Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s Home Minister, warned last week.

The Chinese say that Hambantota is a purely commercial venture, but many US and Indian military planners regard it as part of a “string of pearls” strategy under which China is also building or upgrading ports at Gwadar in Pakistan, Chittagong in Bangladesh and Sittwe in Burma.

The strategy was outlined in a paper by Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher J. Pehrson, of the Pentagon’s Air Staff, in 2006, and again in a report by the US Joint Forces Command in November. “For China, Hambantota is a commercial venture, but it’s also an asset for future use in a very strategic location,” Major-General (Retd) Dipankar Banerjee of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in Delhi said.

The British Navy used the Sri Lankan port of Trincomalee as its main regional base until 1957 and still shares a naval base with the US on the nearby island of Diego Garcia. China has no immediate plans for a fully fledged naval base but wants a similar foothold in the Indian Ocean to protect its oil supplies from piracy or blockade by a foreign power, analysts say.

Beijing sent three ships on an unprecedented anti-piracy mission to the Gulf of Aden in December, and in January a Chinese defence White Paper said that the navy was “developing capabilities of conducting co-operation in distant waters . . .”

China has cultivated ties with Sri Lanka for decades and became its biggest arms supplier in the 1990s, when India and Western governments refused to sell weapons to Colombo for use in the civil war. Beijing appears to have increased arms sales significantly to Sri Lanka since 2007, when the US suspended military aid over human rights issues.

Many of the arms have been bought through Lanka Logistics & Technologies, co-headed by Gotabhaya Rajapksa, the Defence Secretary, who is also the President’s brother.

In April 2007 Sri Lanka signed a classified $37.6 million (£25 million) deal to buy Chinese ammunition and ordnance for its army and navy, according to Jane’s Defence Weekly.

China gave Sri Lanka — apparently free of charge — six F7 jet fighters last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, after a daring raid by the Tigers’ air wing destroyed ten military aircraft in 2007. One of the Chinese fighters shot down one of the Tigers’ aircraft a year later.

“China’s arms sales have been the decisive factor in ending the military stalemate,” Brahma Chellaney, of the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi, said. “There seems to have been a deal linked to Hambantota.”

Since 2007 China has encouraged Pakistan to sell weapons to Sri Lanka and to train Sri Lankan pilots to fly the Chinese fighters, according to Indian security sources.

China has also provided crucial diplomatic support in the UN Security Council, blocking efforts to put Sri Lanka on the agenda. It has also boosted financial aid to Sri Lanka, even as Western countries have reduced their contributions.

China’s aid to Sri Lanka jumped from a few million dollars in 2005 to almost $1 billion last year, replacing Japan as the biggest foreign donor. By comparison, the United States gave $7.4 million last year, and Britain just £1.25 million.

“That’s why Sri Lanka has been so dismissive of international criticism,” said B. Raman of the Chennai Centre for China Studies. “It knows it can rely on support from China.”

How thermal-imaging cameras can spot flu fevers

By BARBARA ORTUTAY

NEW YORK (AP) — To screen passengers for swine flu and other contagious diseases, some airports use thermal imaging cameras to see whether travelers have fevers, without having to stick thermometers in their mouths. So how do the cameras work?

The devices are just like regular cameras, except that instead of recording light that objects reflect, these cameras are sensitive to heat. They can even work in the dark.

Recordings from these cameras show up on video screens with hotter objects looking brighter. The systems are very sensitive, measuring temperatures down to a fraction of a degree Fahrenheit, said Andrew Sarangan, an associate professor in the University of Dayton's electro-optics program.

Thermal cameras were rolled out during the SARS outbreak in 2002 and 2003, and airports in Singapore and China have been using them continuously since, said Alan Thomson, regional sales director at U.K.-based Irisys, a maker of thermal imaging devices.

Now manufacturers say they've noticed an uptick in orders in recent days. "The phone hasn't stopped ringing," Thomson said.

In Mexico, which already has 10 such cameras, the transportation secretary, Juan Molinar, said Thursday that 40 more were being bought for the country's eight largest airports.

Of course, while the cameras can detect higher temperatures, they can't screen for swine flu itself. Someone running to catch a flight can have a higher body temperature, as can someone who's just had a drink. A fever also does not necessarily mean someone is sick with swine flu, so airports need to do further screening once they spot passengers with high temperatures.

Irisys' cameras, which cost about $3,000, merge visual and thermal images to create a "heat picture" of a person. This image shows up on a screen on the back of the camera, much like the displays on consumer cameras. A pointer automatically shows the hottest area in the picture, which is usually a person's face, mainly because it's not covered in clothes.

Tony Trunzo, senior vice president at Wilsonville, Ore.-based Flir Systems Inc., said his company has seen orders pick up not only from airports, but factory operators as well.

Flir's cameras have improved significantly since the SARS outbreak, Trunzo said. The cameras have a higher resolution, for example. They've gotten cheaper, too, though the company's cameras still range between $10,000 and $15,000.

Flir also has determined that it's best to screen one person at a time, instead of scanning a large crowd.