15 September 1930

The past few weeks have been the most interesting weeks of my life so far. I am now in the Weimar Republic; I left to come here on August 18^th, after spending a couple of short weeks with the great Mr. John Keynes. He left me his address, and told me to mail him when I return home to America when I have completed my task and become a seasoned traveler!

Germany is not at all what I thought it was going to be. In the States, I had heard rumblings of the changes happening over here after the war. The “Years of Crisis” were well documented in the newspapers, and I had seen pictures of men carrying their paychecks in wheelbarrows. I was expecting the absolute worst . . . but when I arrived off the train, I saw a different Germany than I had pictured! There has been a lot of change. The buildings are largely very state-of-the-art, and the music I am hearing is so different from anything I have ever heard. It is strange, but I see a little piece of home here in Germany. I’ve been talking to a lot of people, and generally this “cultural revival” is appreciated, but some of the older folk I’ve managed to understand (I don’t speak very good German) have had nothing but complaints about Germany losing her traditional values . . . all I can think is that this must be better than it was after the war.

However, things seem to be taking a turn for the worse once again. Yesterday, there was an election in Germany. A group called the Nazis are said to have gotten more than 6,000,000 votes . . . I am not sure how I feel about it, but generally people are happy that they are now the largest party in Germany. I heard their leader, Adolph Hitler, speak a couple of weeks ago, and he was admittedly enrapturing. There is just something unsettling about the way he speaks to Germans like they are the only people on the planet; the other day on the radio I heard him say that “The struggle for world domination will be fought entirely between us, between Germans and Jews.  All else is facade and illusion.  Behind England stands Israel, and behind France, and behind the United States.  Even when we have driven the Jew out of Germany, he remains our world enemy.” This disturbed me, right down to my very core, and what disturbed me more is that people are listening to him say these things, every day.

Equally disturbing is the fact that I discovered I am distantly related to Hitler. We are connecting by a woman named Anna Maria Goeschl. She died in 1854 but after much research I stumbled upon the startling fact that she is my great-great-great aunt thrice removed; she was Adolph Hitler’s great-grandmother. It provides little comfort, the distance of our relation.

On the bright side, my family tree has now officially begun.