From Horst Wessel,

John F. Kennedy's Insight on Hitler

After making a 1945 pilgrimage, like millions of tourists every year, to Adolf Hitler's famous mountain retreats at Berchtesgaden, including the Berghof ruins and the Eagle's Nest built on the Kehlstein high above it, the young naval officer who would later become President of the United States wrote these words in his diary (page 74):

"After visiting these two places, you can easily understand how 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 in him the stuff of which legends are made."

––Prelude to Leadership: The European Diary of John F. Kennedy,
Summer 1945 (edited by Hugh Sidey), Washington, 1995