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

suicide, the latter by summary execution. Franco died in bed of old age in 1975.
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    Kemal (or Kamal ) Atatiirk , the founder of the modern Turkish Republic , was a somewhat unpredictable, mercurial, and dangerous man, as this story illustrates:
    In 1926 an unsuccessful assassination attempt convinced him that his opponents in the government had to be eliminated, so he ordered the arrest and hanging of the opposition leaders, including some people who had been close friends and allies in the struggle against the Sultan.

    Turkey thus became in essence a dictatorship. But Kamal did not want a dictatorship. He wanted a republic. So in 1930 he proceeded to create an opposition party, even to the extent of naming its leadership. He could not understand why they subsequently did not oppose him with sufficient vigor.
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    Two of the enduring myths about Adolf Hitler are that he was part Jewish and that his real name was Adolf Schicklgruber . Here is the truth on both scores:
    Hitler's father was born out of wedlock, and the identity of Hitler's paternal grandfather is unknown. Hitler's paternal grandmother, Maria Anna Schicklgruber , was employed in Strones , Austria, as a domestic servant at the time she became pregnant in 1837. The family for whom she worked was named Bloch, a name not uncommon among German Jews, but one quite common among other Germans.
    His father thus grew up as Alois Schicklgruber . In 1876 he was adopted by Johann Georg Hiedler , a relative who married his mother Maria Anna. Thus Alois Schicklgruber became Alois Hiedler , which later morphed into Hitler. (Consistency of spelling was not common among the rural Austrian lower classes.) Adolf Hitler's name at birth was, therefore, Hitler.
    But the possibility that his grandfather was a Jew gnawed at Hitler his entire life. When Germany annexed Austria in 1938, he instructed Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo, to track down the identity of the man who impregnated his grandmother. Himmler ordered the investigation, but to no avail. The identity of Hitler's paternal grandfather remains unknown.
    The grave of Hitler's parents in Leonding , Austria, remains to this day. But the graves of all other relatives were demolished on Himmler's orders. The town cemetery in Strones , in fact, was used as an artillery range.
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    A German physician who treated numerous Nazi officials told this story, for which there is no other documentation.
    In 1943 Heinrich Himmler went to his physician in a state of nervous exhaustion. The subsequent physical examination yielded disturbing results. His blood pressure was seriously elevated, his pulse was much too rapid, and he was running a low grade fever. When asked if something out of the ordinary was bothering him, he confided that he was supposed to exterminate "a certain segment of the Hungarian population", i.e., Jews, before the end of the year. When the doctor expressed horror and revulsion at this confidence, Himmler objected impatiently. "You don't understand," he said. "I am swamped with work! It is impossible for me to accomplish this by the end of the year!"
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    Adolf Eichmann was a major figure in the black-shirted S.S. during the era of the Third Reich and was deeply involved in the Holocaust. He was put in charge of the mass deportation of Jews from all over Nazi-occupied Europe to the death camps in Poland . It is estimated that between two and two and a half million men, women, and children were transported to their deaths under his direction.
    Eichmann escaped from Europe at the end of the war and lived under various pseudonyms as well as his own name for the next fifteen years until he was located and kidnapped by the Mossad , the Israeli secret service. He was taken to Israel where he was tried for murder, convicted, and hanged.
    When his trial began he was asked, as are all defendants in criminal trials, to identify himself on the witness stand. He did so, and he was then asked to describe his role in the