Shopkeepers under the bed

In the 18th Century the petit-bourgeois were held in relatively high standing by classical liberals like Voltaire, but for today's intelligentsia the self-employed lower-middle class have about as much status as the untouchables in the Indian caste system.

Take for example, this quote about Hitler in a recent observer column by Robert McCrum. In writing on the recent films spate of historical films about the Nazis he states:

Finally and most chillingly, there's what Hannah Arendt called the 'banality of evil', the petit bourgeois provincialism of the Fuhrer, whose astounding ordinariness, junxtaposed with the Nazi inferno, continues to mesmerise genereations of biographers and historians."

Given that the 20th Century witnessed history's greatest mass murder of petit-bourgeois under Joseph Stalin, with his persecution of the Kulaks, one might think educated liberal snobs might ease up on comparing them to Hitler.

To be fair, McCrum does mention Stalin's crimes, quoting biographer lan Kershaw, but conveniently avoids any awkward details of Marxist intellectuals knocking off Ukrainian small farmers.

"Stalin was a fair greater mass murderer, but Hitler's programme was planned and executed in a hideous parody of organised government.

Mind you, liberal petit-bourgeois bashing even extends to knocking former left-liberal icons like Ralph Nader, a son of a shopkeeper, demonised by Democrats supporters for daring to run against the party in 2000 and 2004.

Putting the liberal obsession with knocking the petit-bourgeois to one side though, I don't see what's so "astoundingly ordinary" about Hitler. If anything the guy was extraordinary un-ordinary in his particular combination of personal traits.

For a start, there's the combination of Iron Cross-winning tough guy and bohemian arts student, which doesn't exactly make him easy to stereotype. Then there's the junxtaposition of his banal, derivative painting with the advant-garde futurism of his Nazi party designs like the Swastika, adopted from an Eastern design, and his mastery of the latest propaganda techniques - staid traditionalist on one hand, trendy visionary on the other.

Further highlighting Hitler's individuality was his hatred of democracy and consensus on one hand and his dislike of aristocratic elites on the other. And on top of this there's his hatred of smoking, eccentric appearance, vegetarianism and post modern love of animals - traits more associated with a liberal university lecturer than a merciless Fascist henchmen.

Perhaps the greatest mystery is how a hypochondriac pill-popper was able to hold him nerves together during over 40 assassination attempts (as well as flash rockets, perhaps those Germans were making some super drugs to).

Hence Hitler's warped uniqueness may well have been a factor in why he was able to go so far. The German people were expecting a Franco or Mussolini when they voted him in, but instead got some sort of demented combination of Jim Jones, Pol Pot and Staachi and Staachi.

The banality of evil might be good phrase to describe conventional henchmen like Stalin and Sadam, but I don't see how it applies to a true totalitarian eccentric like Hitler.