I Saw Hitler

by Dorothy Thompson

In the early 1930s – when Hitler was driving for power but it was not clear he could make it – Thompson wrote this very condescending piece based on an interview with him. It belittled him. She went out of her way to prick the tenderest spots of Hitler’s psyche. She said he didn’t really look like a German leader and how could someone like this ever really succeed. It appeared originally in the Ladies Home Journal and then became a book. Of course, she was wrong. He did become the head of state.