Munich social elites were probably less captivated by the aggressive anti-Semitism with which Hitler regularly enraptured his beer-hall audiences than by his bizarre appearance and eccentric behaviour. “He had the aura of a magician, a whiff of the circus and of tragic embitterment, and the harsh shine of the ‘famous beast,’ ” was how Joachim Fest put it.156 Members of good society simply had to see the man all of Munich was talking about, and even those who found his political radicalism repellent regarded him a fascinating object of study, whose mere presence guaranteed an evening’s
...more
