A picture truly is worth a thousand words. The article in the New York Times "Mystery Solved," says more than I ever care to mention about the wannabe fuhrer. At least the artist carved in a forgivable christian cross.
So what's missing in that tombstone dash? Reverence!
From the book Reverence; Renewing a Forgotten Virtue
by Paul Woodruff:
"Simply put, reverence is the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like gods.
To forget that you are only human, to think you can act like god - this is the opposite of reverence. Ancient Greeks thought that tyranny was the height of irreverence, and they gave the famous name of hubris to the crimes of tyrants. An irreverent soul is arrogant and shameless, unable to feel awe in the face of things higher than itself. As a result, an irreverent soul is unable to feel respect for people it sees as lower than itself - ordinary people, prisoners, children. The two failures go together, in both Greek and Chinese traditions.
If an emperor has a sense of awe, this will remind him that Heaven is his superior - that he is, as they said in ancient China, the Son of Heaven. And any of us is better for remembering that there is someone, or Someone, to whom we are children; in this frame of mind we are more likely to treat all children with respect. And vice versa: If you cannot bring yourself to respect children, you are probably deficient in the ability to feel that anyone or anything is higher than you.
Reverence has more to do with politics than with religion. We can easily imagine religion without reverence; we see it, for example, wherever religion leads people into aggressive war or violence. But power without reverence - that is a catastrophe for all concerned. Power without reverence is aflame with arrogance, while service without reverence is smoldering toward rebellion. Politics without reverence is blind to the general good and deaf to advice from people who are powerless. And life without reverence? Entirely without reverence? That would be brutish and selfish, and it had best be lived alone."
Respica te, hominem te momento
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