Warm and Witty Side of Attila the Hun by Jeffrey Sackett Page A

early 1950s, Nikita Khrushchev was walking through the Kremlin on the way to his office when he met Stalin in the hallway. Smiling broadly, he said, "Good morning, Comrade Stalin!"
    Stalin stopped in his tracks and glared at Khrushchev. "What are you smiling about?" he snapped. "What are you up to?"
    Khrushchev stammered a light-hearted demurral. After glaring at him for a few more moments, Stalin walked on.
    Khrushchev managed to avoid Stalin for the next few days (out of sight, out of mind, as it were), but he could not avoid attending the meeting of the Politburo later that week. The other members were laughing at a joke someone had told, but Khrushchev made a point of not joining in the laughter, maintaining instead a dour demeanor.
    He took his seat, to find Stalin glaring at him again. "What's wrong?" Stalin demanded. "What's the matter? What aren't you telling me?"
    As the old saying goes, damned if you do, damned if you don't.
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    In addition his well-known love of opera, Hitler also enjoyed movies, musical comedies in particular. He eventually had private movie theaters installed in both his Alpine villa, the Obersaltzburg above Berchtesgaden , and in the Chancellery in Berlin ; but for the first year after he became chancellor he actually "went to the movies." Of course, he did not do this as an average person would. A typical night at the movies for Hitler went as follows: An hour or so before the film began someone on Hitler's staff would call the manager of the theater (he always went to the same one in Berlin ) and inform him that the Führer would be attending that night. The ushers, whose job it was to seat the patrons, would then rope off the last three rows of seats. After the house lights dimmed Hitler and his entourage would enter, take their seats, and enjoy the show.
    In theaters back then some sort of expression of patriotism preceded the film. (In the U.S., for example, a picture on the screen of the American flag accompanied by the strains of the Star-Spangled Banner was commonplace well into the late 1950s.) In the darkened theater in Berlin, a picture of Hitler standing before the Nazi flag, accompanied by the national anthem Deutschland, Deutschland Über Alles , began the show, and everyone in the theater was expected to stand and give the image the Nazi salute; everyone except, of course, Hitler, who could not be expected to stand and salute himself.
    On one occasion a new usher, a fellow unfamiliar with the procedure, saw that one patron (Hitler) was not standing and saluting. Not knowing who he was, the usher crept up behind Hitler in the darkness and whispered in his ear, "Listen, I hate the Schweinhund too, but it's safer if you stand up."
    As is commonly known, the German word Schweinhund means "pig-dog." The fate of the usher is not known, but can be surmised.
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    Generalissimo (i.e., supreme general) Francisco Franco led the victorious reactionary forces in the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939, and ruled Spain until his death. He would never have won that war, however, were it not for the active support and assistance of Mussolini and Hitler. It was reasonable to assume, therefore, that the Spanish dictator would consider joining his fellow fascist dictators in the war against Britain .
    To that end Hitler met with Franco at the Franco-Spanish border soon after the German defeat and occupation of France. He pressured the Spaniard, wheedled, enticed, harangued, made promises, and turned on every bit of his charismatic charm, which was considerable; but Franco refused to be seduced into anything more than carefully chosen (and vacuous) expressions of solidarity and well-wishes. After the meeting ended, Hitler said, “I would rather go to the dentist and have my teeth extracted than speak to that man again.”
    Franco apparently made the correct choice in keeping Spain out of World War Two. His friends Hitler and Mussolini predeceased him by thirty years, the former by