Bern Roche Farrelly -etcetera

The body of Napoleon the second was brought to Paris by Adolf Hitler. It was a symbolic gesture, mirroring the return of Napoleon’s own body to Les Invalides. The forgotten ‘King of Rome’ was buried next to his father’s massive tomb and a monument was erected. The statue depicts the Emperor’s child as a Roman Caesar aping his father’s own appropriation of Imperial Roman imagery. His robes are covered in golden honeybees, the industrious symbol of the city of Rome. Just as Napoleon wanted symbolically link himself to the Roman Emperors Hitler wanted to tie himself to Napoleon’s myth to siphon off some of its authority and significance. Like Hitler Napoleon the Second was half Austrian. Hitler probably saw this as significant, lending further weight to his own self conceived personal myth.  Later on Hitler was to fight a disastrous Russian campaign helpfully demonstrating the difference between learning from history and basking in myth.

The authority of symbols and stories obsessed two of most ruthless and powerful military figures in European history.