Tales from Mackenzie King's Diary, Vol. 1

William Lyon Mackenzie King. A great Prime Minister. A Liberal. The guy on the $50 bill. There are a great many reasons he should be remembered, not in the least his diary. Kept from the time he was an 18-year-old undergraduate at the University of Toronto in 1893 right up to a couple of days before his death in 1950, the diary was the place where King wrote all of his personal observations about the people, places, and events around him. And for the most part it was updated daily, quite unlike this blog. A quote from the website A Real Companion and Friend: The Role of the Diary in Mackenzie King's Life sums up well what I wished to say next:

It is thus surprising that King in his will, ordered that his diary be destroyed, "except the parts which I have indicated are and shall be available for publication or use." He was undoubtedly concerned about all the personal details contained in the diary, accounts of illnesses, psychic research, and dreams, as well as his candid comments on various persons. But there were hints that he did not really want the diary destroyed at all.

And thus it is on that Government of Canada-run website that the entire diary, all 30 000 pages of it, is available for anyone with an Internet connection to browse.

Now, any diary contains a mix of both profound reflection and some, well, stranger entries. King's diary is no different. But some entries stand out as being very interesting or completely bizarre, especially when viewed through the lens of history. Some of these are entries I've known about for a long time, but because I didn't have a blog before, I couldn't share them online. Therefore, to remedy both this and the drought of posts on this blog, I hereby present the first (highly irregularly updated) series on Maple Glaze: "Tales from William Lyon Mackenzie King's Diary". Enjoy.



June 29, 1937 was a big day for King. He was finishing up a three-day visit to Germany; he would start home the next day. But before that happened, there was a big item on his agenda left to accomplish: meet with the German leader. Now, anyone up on their history will realize that in 1937, the German leader was none other than Führer Adolf Hitler. Yes, just over two years before he would declare war on him, King had a cordial meeting and discussion with Hitler.

King wrote extensively of how this meeting went, and a great many of these details are worthy of posting about. However, what has always stood out to me is one of the last pages, where King talks about the end of the meeting and gives an evaluation of Hitler as a person. Here are some of the key excerpts:

As I got up to go, Hitler reached over and took in his hands a red square box with a gold eagle on its cover, and taking it in his two hands, offered it to me, asked me to accept it in appreciation of my visit to Germany. At the same time, he said he had much enjoyed the talk we had had together, and thanked me for the visit. When I opened the cover of the box, I saw it was a beautifully silver mounted picture of himself, personally inscribed. I let him see that I was most appreciative of it, shook him by the hand, and thanked him warmly for it, saying that I greatly appreciated all that it expressed of his friendship, and would always deeply value this gift. He went to give it to someone else to carry but I told him I would prefer to carry it myself.

This passage is telling in a couple of ways.

1. Hitler thought a picture of himself would be a great souvenir of Germany. This shows just how enormous his ego must have been, since it shows that he thought the best item to represent all that Germany stood for was an image of himself, that he was the very personification of Germany. Granted, he has become such for the years of his rule, but that Hitler thought of himself that way even before the beginning of the war is striking.

2. King did not find it at all strange that Hitler was giving him a "personally inscribed" picture of himself. Imagine if during Barack Obama's recent visit to Canada, Stephen Harper had given him a silver-framed, personally inscribed picture of himself. Every tabloid in both countries would have had a field day both deriding Harper's ego and possibly suggesting some kind of homosexual affair between them. Also, one has to wonder exactly what Hitler inscribed on the picture. "Thanks for coming!" "To my friends, the people of Canada, at least the Aryan ones." "Pay no attention when parts of Czechoslovakia start mysteriously disappearing." And so on.

But it gets better.

He then drew back a few steps to shake hands and to say good-bye in a more or less formal way. I then said that I would like to speak once more of the constructive side of his work, and what he was seeking to do for the greater good of those in humble walks of life; that I was strongly in accord with it, and thought it would work; by which he would be remembered; to let nothing destroy that work. I wished him well in his efforts to help mankind.

Of course, it is exactly his humanitarian efforts, especially alleviating poverty, for which Hitler is remembered today. In other news, a passenger plane recently avoided a collision with a flock of pigs over Manitoba. (Image source)

This passage, more than anything, makes me wonder exactly what efforts King is complimenting Hitler on. More than likely, it is some project like Kraft durch Freude that has since taken a backseat to World War II and the Holocaust in the Nazi German section of history books. Neither the Final Solution or the Aktion T4 Euthanasia Program had yet begun in 1937, so it is thankfully not possible that King was talking about either of those. And we can safely say that King was not referring to Germany's expansionist Lebensraum doctrine under which Germany would later be merged with Austria and other nearby territories.

But it still gets better.

I then thanked him again for having given me the privilege of so long an interview. He smiled very pleasantly and indeed had a sort of appealing and affectionate look in his eyes. My sizing up of the man as I sat and talked with him was that he is really one who truly loves his fellow-men, and his country, and would make any sacrifice for their good. That he feels himself to be a deliverer of his people from tyranny.

OK, back up. It's one thing to say that Hitler thought of himself as Germany's saviour; that much has always been obvious. But to say he had an appealing and affectionate look in his eyes? That's like George Bush taking on a quiet and cerebral air about him. As for loving his countrymen, well, Hitler did have a great pride in his vision of the German race, so I guess it could be said that in a strange, perverted way, he did love his countrymen, just as long as they weren't Jewish, Roma, mentally or physically handicapped, Communist...the list goes on.

And it still gets better (worse?).

To understand Hitler, one has to remember his limited opportunities in early life, his imprisonment, etc. It is truly marvellous what he has attained unto himself through his self education. He reminded me quite a little of Cardin in his quiet way, until he begins to speak when he warms up and begins to get carried away with what he is saying. He has much the same kind of composed exterior with a deep emotional nature within.

OK, that's all reasonable. To understand someone, you have to understand their history. And it's fair to be impressed with how Hitler engineered his rise to power and to compliment his oratory skills. I can't comment on Cardin, though, because I'm not sure who King is referring to, and I'm sure it's not the Vietnamese-American pop singer who is the only result for "Cardin" on Wikipedia.

His face is much more prepossessing than his pictures would give the impression of. It is not that of a fiery, over-strained nature, but of a calm, passive man, deeply and thoughtfully in earnest. His skin was smooth; his face did not present lines of fatigue or weariness; his eyes impressed me most of all. There was a liquid quality about them which indicate keen perception and profound sympathy. He looked most direct at me in our talks together at the time save when he was speaking at length on any one subject; he then sat quite composed, and spoke straight ahead, not hesitating for a word, perfectly frankly, looking down occasionally toward the translator and occasionally toward myself.

OK, what the heck. It's one thing to say that someone's skin is "smooth"; taken on its own, that's creepy enough, although perhaps it was less so in 1937. But to say that about Hitler, that's just downright disturbing. I don't even want to think about what kind of moisturizer he would use. And then he also compliments his face and his eyes. It almost sounds like he's describing his first date more so than a political meeting. And it's freaking Hitler! And here I thought it was only Neville Chamberlain who was secretly smitten with Hitler, showering him with gifts like Austria and the Sudetenland in the name of "appeasement".

I discovered this passage a couple of years ago, and it's stuck with me to this day as one of the most hilariously disturbing things ever written by a politician, especially a Canadian one. King had a habit of making comments on people's physicality in his diary; in 1934, he described British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald as "handsome" when viewed from the side, saying, "His eyes are dark & at one time doubtless were piercing..." But he didn't go nearly as far with him as he did with Hitler. Maybe this is why he wanted his diaries destroyed. Don't worry, Mr. King, your secret is safe; after all, not that many people read this blog anyway.

And so ends this edition of "Tales from William Lyon Mackenzie King's Diary". There will be another whenever I find something else worth posting from said diary. As for Maple Glaze in general, expect the next post to come whenever I finish one of the handful of song parodies that I've had in the works for the past couple of months, including the aforementioned Billy Joel ones. This is Keith Lehwald, reminding everyone that Neutrogena has a proud history going back to 1930 and may or may not have been used by the German elite of the day, but has always remained politically neutral thanks to being based in Switzerland.