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Adolf
Hitler is in trouble again. The infamous ex-dictator is
no stranger to controversy, and last month in Multnomah
County District Court, Hitler found himself under harsh
media spotlights yet again when a judge ordered him to undergo
anger-management counseling.
The
shocking judicial decision came amid a routine probation-violation
hearing that occurred after Hitler was found walking within
150 feet of a synagogue, a clear violation of his probation.
Right before the judge issued  his
decree, Mr. Hitler, the Portland resident whom critics call
The Most Evil Man in World History, erupted with a loud
volley of invectives that had judge Ernest K. Jeske threatening
to cite him for contempt of court.
"THIS
IS BULLSHIT!" Hitler had jumped up and screamed after the
judge recommended he spend forty hours of community service
cleaning racist graffiti off of synagogues and mosques in
the greater Portland area, graffiti which many experts believe
was left by Mr. Hitler himself. "I'm tired of you motherfuckers
treating me like a goddamned STEPCHILD!" Hitler continued.
"It's been more than fifty years since I killed a Jew, and
STILL you're gonna put me through the wringer? FUCK that
shit, man! Adolf Hitler ain't goin' out like that!"
"One more peep out of you, Mr. Hitler," Judge Jeske threatened,
"and I'll have you taken out of here in handcuffs. Do you
understand me, Mr. Hitler? In this courtroom, I'M der
Führer."
Hitler
smirked defiantly but remained silent as Judge Jeske continued.
"Mr.
Hitler, I've just about lost patience with you," the judge
said. "Our community's traditional method of correcting
someone's behavior has been social disapproval and ostracism,
but these things don't seem to work with you. Over the years,
I've watched you float in and out of this courtroom over
and over again, and I've never seen you exhibit the tiniest
sliver of remorse for all the hurt you've caused others.
You are one of the most selfish, self-absorbed characters
I've ever run across. It's always Adolf, Adolf, Adolf. Therefore,
you have left me no other choice but to recommend that you
attend Cage Your Rage, which is a six-week anger-management
class sponsored by the Oregon Department of Corrections.
You'll attend six one-hour classes in a group setting where
you'll hopefully get to the bottom of some of your anger
issues and resentments. After you're done with the class,
I want you to bring in your certificate, and we'll talk
about dismissing this probation violation, OK? Now, do you
have anything to say for yourself?"
"Your
Honor," Hitler said, clearing his throat, "this really hurts
my feelings. That's all. I feel very confused, and this
really hurts my feelings."
"Mr.
Hitler," the judge
countered, "sometimes I
wonder whether you have
any feelings."
 The
judge also said that the name "Adolf" was perhaps a bit
too harsh and was inextricably associated with Hitler's
shameful past. "How about 'Todd' for a first name?" the
judge suggested. "I would trust someone named Todd
Hitler."
Regarding
Hitler's being evil, the judge said, "Cut it out!" And
on the topic of Hitler's legendary anti-Semitism, the
judge warned, "Let me make this clear--if you kill any
more Jews, it's straight back to jail with you."
"Let me make
this clear--if you kill any more Jews, it's straight
back to jail with you."
OUTSIDE
THE COURTROOM, Hitler appears shaken by the decision.
"I've done some bad things, no doubt about it," he says,
"but I think the judge is clearly overstepping the boundaries
of fairness in this case. To me, this smacks of a personal
vendetta. Just because of who I am--you know, I'm Hitler--people
try to take advantage of me. It might have been fair if
the judge asked for a
public apology from me or something, but a six-week
anger-management class? Ouch! How am I going to explain
this at work?" Hitler says he'll attend the anger-management
classes "only because I don't want to go back to jail."
Adolf
Hitler became a Portland resident about ten years ago after
a more than forty-year stint in Argentina following WWII,
a war that Hitler now wistfully calls "The One That Got
Away." After moving here, he attracted immediate local attention
when a Willamette Week reporter quoted him as saying,
"The Jews run everything." The city's Jewish mayor, the
Jewish head of the Chamber of Commerce, and the Jewish police
chief all demanded that Mr. Hitler retract his statement.
Instead of doing so, Hitler said that his detractors "need
to chill."
"I
was quoted out of context by that asshole from Willamette
Week," Hitler now says. "I never technically said, 'The
Jews run everything.' If you listen to the tape, you can
clearly hear me saying something like, 'Boy, those
Jews, they sure
run
a lot of stuff, y'know?' It was more like that. It was
more innocent than it sounded.
"I'm
not a Nazi anymore," Hitler tells me with a shrug. "The
whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. I already
apologized for the Holocaust. I mean, I felt really, really
bad about it. What else do they want from me? I think
I've learned from my
mistakes, and I think I've grown as a person. Mostly,
I really want to be left alone. And I think the Jews need
to just let it go."
THE COFFEE POT ISN'T WORKING
again this week--for the third week in a
row--causing some of the men to grumble when they enter
the room for the meeting. The old wooden chairs squeak
when you sit down in them. The linoleum floors are scuffed
and dull. The big wooden table in the middle of the room
is covered in crude engravings, some of them unprintable,
scratched in the wood by bored students.
This
is where the angry men come to deal with their anger.
This
is where Adolf Hitler is just another angry man among
many.
"Adolf
needs to stop hiding his feelings behind lofty notions
about his race or his nation," says Cesar Sanchez, Hitler's
anger-management facilitator. "He needs to think on a
much smaller scale. He needs
to stop worrying about Jews and Germans and start thinking
about what's right for Adolf." Sanchez is an amiable,
barrel-chested Chicano who served prison time after an
armed robbery which left a Catholic nun permanently brain-damaged.
Hitler
has been attending his anger-management classes for two
weeks and "seems to be making progress," according to
Sanchez. "He had a bit of an attitude when he first came
in here," Sanchez remembers, "thinking he was all better
than everybody and more famous than everybody and more
supreme than everybody, but I took care of that quick.
I got right in his face and yelled, 'Look, Hitler! I don't
care if you're Mr. Big Bad Hitler! I ain't afraid of you,
Hitler!' and I haven't had any problems with him since.
Unlike a lot of these guys they send me, at least Hitler
shows up for the meetings on-time every week, and
he's always very neatly dressed. Except for the fact that
he singlehandedly started a World War which led to the
deaths of fifty million people, he's really a model student.
I wish everyone had his manners."
At
this week's meeting, a fat, walleyed black man named Kelvis
is talking about how his first love left him standing
at the altar and how his life unraveled afterward. Kelvis
begins crying as he recalls all the years wasted on crack
cocaine, all the ruined friendships, and all the times
police were summoned to his apartment to quell domestic
disturbances with all the women he was using to try and
fill his first love's place.
The
room is silent except for Kelvis's sobs. Finally, Hitler
reaches across the table and gently nudges a tissue box
in front of Kelvis, who grabs a tissue and looks appreciatively
at the former evil despot.
"Thanks,
Hitler," Kelvis says in between the tears. "Man, I don't
care what they say--you all right!"
After
the meeting, Sanchez seems pleased with his client's progress.
"Giving Kelvis the tissue box was the sort of thing you'd
never expect from Adolf Hitler. But put him in a group
filled with other angry men and tell him, 'Hey, Hitler,
it's OK--we hurt, too,' and Hitler can finally
relax, blow off some steam, and just be 'one of the guys.'"
Outside
the meeting room, Hitler reflects on his compassionate
act.
"I saw that poor black man cry because he lost the woman
he loved,
and I felt compelled to help him. Why? Because I, too,
once loved a woman and lost her. That woman's name was
Deutschland."
WHAT
DOES THE FUTURE hold for Adolf Hitler? Will the admittedly
draconian  measure
of forcing him to take a six-week anger-management class
yield the desired results of a healthier, happier Hitler?
We know that Mussolini responded well to Paxil and that
one-on-one Jungian therapy is working wonders for Saddam
Hussein. Will six grueling encounter sessions with other
angry males be the ticket that pries open his heart like
a clamshell and forces him to accept once and for all
that he is a member of the master race--the human
race?
Hitler
seems to think so.
"I
wake up in the morning," Hitler says, "and I throw open
my bedroom shutters to see the birds all aflutter and the
golden sun gently dusting the leaves on the trees, and I
feel happy to be alive. I look back soberly on the mistakes
of my past and say, 'Wow, dude, I fucked up. I fucked
up royally.' But you know what? It's OK! God isn't
done with me yet. Sure, people are probably always gonna
give me a hard time for being Hitler, but I can accept that.
Hitler's the one who has to live with Hitler, y'know? These
days, especially after my three sessions of Mr. Sanchez's
class,
I can look at myself in the mirror while I'm shaving around
that little mustache of mine and say, 'You're all right,
kiddo. You're only human.' Imagine that! Hitler's
only human. That was really hard for me to say, but it feels
really good saying it."
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