it was unthinkable to Germans that a man who had not even finished high school, to say nothing of college, who had lodged in flop-houses and whose mode of life for years is a mystery to this day, should even make a pass toward a position once held by a Bismarck, a Baron vom Stein, a Prince Bülow. Nothing misled the German intellectuals as much as this education-vainglory into believing that Hitler was still only the beer-hall agitator who never could become a real danger, at a time when, thanks to his invisible wirepullers, he already had won to himself powerful supporters in the most varied
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