The following article by Eugen Sorg appeared in the 29/04 issue of the renowned Swiss weekly Weltwoche. It describes the extra-historical appeal of Adolf Hitler and was translated into English by Constantin von Hoffmeister.

Weltwoche, Zurich, Issue 29/2004:

Hi HITLER!

Sixty years after his death, the mass-destroyer is more popular than ever. In India he symbolizes resistance, in Egypt prosperity, in Peru discipline. The Senegalese celebrate him as a hero of anti-colonialism and the Chinese in Hong Kong as a champion of style.

Presumably, Hitler is the only European who, more than half a century after his death, is still widely known around the world. Other contemporary politicians, such as Churchill or de Gaulle, are merely remembered in the respective linguistic or cultural spheres; the same goes for intellectual heroes like Goethe, Kant, Cervantes, Shakespeare.

But only the mass-murderer Hitler is part of popular knowledge in Korea, Japan, Namibia or Uruguay, even outside the academic islands.

Hitler, the German, is not only the most well-known European, but beside the religious founders Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha or the slayers Genghis Khan or Stalin perhaps one of the most well-known figures of all time.

These are the results of journalistic polls by five members of our newspaper in the Southern parts of the world. For Europeans, who like to view their continent as the cradle of the Enlightenment and humanism, it is a rather embarrassing finding. And a disconcerting if not downright shocking one. Because Hitler is viewed in a positive light by millions of non-Europeans.

However, if one listens closely, this disconcertment slightly wanes. Most of the time, it is not the historical Hitler, the politician of hatred and extermination who is celebrated or even wished to reappear, but a figure of fantasy with few real attributes. Hitler has a cathartic function, in which each culture projects its specific experiences, preferences and problems.

In the corrupt and chaotic economies of South America, Hitler is read as a code for order and national unity. Africans, on the other hand, admire the strong man in him, the myth of power, but also the enemy of the former colonialists France and England.

Also in India, from whose history Hitler took his ideas of the Aryans and the Swastika, even though the subcontinent does not know any anti-Semitic traditions, Hitler is transfigured into an aid in the national liberation struggle against the British Crown.

However, in East Asia, Hitler is merely present as an aesthetic influence in fashion collections, commercials and the restaurant business, uncoupled from Nazi policies or World War II.

This is not the case in the Arabic and Iranian center of Islam. Not only is Hitler celebrating a renaissance in the Middle East, but the modern view of Hitler is closest to the historical one. In contrast to the West, the historical facts are evaluated differently. What is condemned as the most abominable deed of Hitler: the attempted extermination of the Jews, is judged as honorable politics by many in the Middle East. The only reproach: Hitler did not finish the job.