Dylan on Hitler

Bob Dylan Interview: Talks Rolling Stones, "Real Music," Val Kilmer, and Hitler

BF: Do you remember images of Hitler from growing up?

BD: No, not growing up. He was dead by the time I was four or five. I never had a real understanding of that.

BF: Never had an understanding of what?

BD: How you take a failed landscape painter and turn him into a fanatical mad man who controls millions. That's some trick. I mean the powers that created him must have been awesome.

BF: Well, the social and economic conditions of the Weimar Republic were so different than now.

BD: Yeah sure, looking back in hindsight, you can see that someone would have to take control. But still, it's so perplexing. Like why him? You could see that the man's a total mutt. No Aryan characteristics whatsoever. You couldn't guess his ancestry. Brown hair, brown eyes, pasty complexion, no particular type of stature, Hitler mustache, raincoat, riding whip, the whole works. He knew something. He knew that people didn't think. Look at the faces of the millions who worshipped him and you see that he inspired love. It's scary and sad. The torch of the spoken word. They were glad to follow him anywhere, loyal to the bone. Then of course, he filled up the cemeteries with them.