ADOLF HITLER - THE TYRANT DICTATOR

  Though Adolf Hitler is dead, many mysteries about him remain unraveled, especially the mystery of how he was able to rise to supreme power.  The source of his strength, the nature of his beliefs, and the workings of his fatal weakness, all these would be debated for many years to come.
  No final assessment could be made at the time, nor can we reasonably expect to reach a final assessment in our generation.  Hitler's verdict on himself was given in the testament he drew up the day before his suicide.  It is an astonishing and revealing document.  He sacrificed the lives of millions of Germans to his own glory, claiming that all his actions had proceeded out of love and loyalty to his people.  With perfect detachment and single-mindedness, he claimed that he had shown the German people the way which destiny had pointed out to them and it was not fault that they had proved unworthy of the task.  He urged the Germans to continue the struggle.
  While he was dictating these words, the Russians had encircled Berlin and the Chancellery was being bombarded by Russian guns at dose range.  Hitler wrote that he chose to die by his own hand rather than submit to cowardly and abdication or capitulation.  But the most revealing paragraph of his testament referred to his possessions, which he bequeathed to the party, or if the party was no longer in existence to the state.  Should the state too be destroyed, no further decision on my part is necessary.