Can you provide better context for either?
Kennedy's 1945 Visit to Germany
In late July and early August 1945, just weeks after the end of the war in Europe, the 28-year-old John F. Kennedy visited war-devastated Germany. Accompanying him on this tour was US Navy Secretary James Forrestal (whom President Truman later appointed as the first Secretary of Defense).
Kennedy recorded his experiences and observations in a diary that was not made public until 1995. (It was published under the title Prelude to Leadership: The European Diary of John F. Kennedy, Summer 1945.)
These diary entries show the youthful Kennedy's wide-ranging curiosity and eye for telling detail -- attributes that were also manifest in his two best-selling books, While England Slept (1940) and Profiles in Courage. Earlier in 1945, he had attended the opening session of the United Nations organization in San Francisco, and had visited Britain to view the parliamentary election campaign, covering both events as a journalist for the Hearst newspaper chain.
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Hitler's Place in History
After Bremen and Bremerhaven, Kennedy and Forrestal flew to Bavaria, where they visited the town of Berchtesgaden and then drove up to Hitler's mountain retreat, which was "completely gutted, the result of an air attack from 12,000 pound bombs by the R.A.F. [British air force] in an attempt on Hitler's life." They then ascended to Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" lair high in the mountains.
Just after this visit, Kennedy wrote a remarkable commentary in his diary, dated August 1, 1945, about Hitler and his place in history:
"After visiting these places, you can easily understand how that within a few years Hitler will emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived.
"He had boundless ambition for his country which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world, but he had a mystery about him in the way that he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him. He had in him the stuff of which legends are made."
Less than a year after this European tour, Kennedy was elected to Congress in Massachusetts, beginning a political career that took him to the White House, and which ended suddenly with his death on November 22, 1963.
From The Journal of Historical Review, May-June 1999 (Vol. 18, No. 3), pp. 30.
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I can recall for years after WWII there were rumors and stories of Hitler sightings, usually in South America.
JFK was right, there is still a mystery and a public fascination about Hitler. Just check out the History Channel and the thousands of Hitler documentaries since WWII.
But no man abhorred war more than John Kennedy, it devastated his family. He wrote a Navy friend a letter while covering the founding of the United Nations in 1945 as a special writer for Hearst Press. In that letter was one of his famous quotes:
"War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."
See page 87-88
A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House - Arthur Meier Schlesinger - Google Books
dunno
