176
THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE JESUITS
themselves", aggravated the more by a note which says: "Amongst the Jews today..., some of them... try to shrug off this heavy responsibility... Honourable sentiments indeed, but we cannot go contrary to the evidence of History... the terrible weight (of Jesus' death) which Israel must bear is not up to men to reject".(133) M. Jules Isaac brings to our notice that the phrases in question have been altered by the publisher "in the more recent editions" of this edifying book—that is to say, after the Liberation. There is "a time" for everything: the crematory furnaces were out-dated. So, from the doctrinal affirmation of the papacy's high principles to their putting into practice by Himmler, "our Ignatius of Loyola", the ring is closed—and we will add the half mad anti-semitism of the Fuhrer thus loses much of its mystery. But—going back to this subject—does it not also shed more light on that baffling individual? The things which were imagined, before the war, in an attempt to explain the evident disproportion between the man and the part he had to play! There was a gap, an obvious vacuum felt by all. To fill this gap, legends were abounding: stories were spread abroad not always without the secret purpose of misleading!, Occult sciences, oriental magicians, astrologers inspired, so we were told, the sleep-walking hermit of Berchtesgaden. And the choice of the swastika as the Nazi party's insigna, which originated from India, seemed to corroborate the idea. M. Maxime Mourin refuted this particular assertion: "Adolf Hitler had been a pupil at the school of Lambach and sang amongst the choir boys in the abbey bearing the same name. He discovered the swastika there, as it was the heraldic sign of Father Hagen, the abbey's administrator".( 134) The Fuhrer's "inspirations" are also easily explained, without having to resort to mysterious or exotic philosophies. If it is obvious that this "son of the Catholic Church", as he was described by Franco, was submitted to the impulses of mysterious leaders, we know also that these had nothing to do with oriental magic. The earthly hells which devoured 25 million victims bear another stamp, easily recognisable: the one of people who had to go through a lengthy and meticulous training, as prescribed in the "Spiritual Exercises" (of the Jesuits).
(133) Jules Isaac: "Jesus et Israel" (Albin Michel, Paris 1948, p.382). (134) Maxime Mourin: "Histoire des Grandes Puissances" (Payot. Paris 1958, p.134).