Harold Nicolson on Adolf Hitler

“Kirkpatrick...says...that once one begins to work with him, or sees him dealing with great affairs, one has such a sense of evil arrogance that one is almost nauseated. He confesses that he has been rendered physically sick by some of the interviews that he has witnessed. Evil and treachery and malice dart into Hitler's mystic eyes. ... We asked Kirkpatrick what gave him his sense of actual evil. He said that after Hitler had flown from Godesberg to Munich to murder Roehm, he returned in the very highest spirits, mimicking to his secretary the gestures of fear which Roehm had made.”

“Burckhardt ... says that Hitler has a dual personality, the first being that of the rather gentle artist, and the second that of the homicidal maniac. He is convinced that Hitler has no complete confidence in himself and that his actions are really governed by somnambulist certainty. He says that the main energy in Hitler is an energy of hatred, and that he has never met any human being capable of generating so terrific a condensation of envy, vituperation and malice.”