The Young Hitler I Knew

by August Kubizek

  It was an essential part of our friendship at that time, that my opinion of civil servants should be as low as his. Knowing his violent rejection of a career in the civil service, I could now appreciate that he preferred the friendship of a simple upholsterer to that of one of those spoilt darlings who were assured of patronage by their good connections and knew in advance the exact course their life would follow. Hitler was just the opposite. With him everything was uncertain. There was another positive factor which made me seem, in Adolf’s eyes, predestined to be his friend; like him I considered art to be the greatest thing in a man’s life. Of course, in those days, we were not able to express this sentiment in such high-faluting words. But in practice we conformed to this principle, because in my life music had long since become the decisive factor – I worked in the workshop only to make my living. For my friend art was even more. His intense way of absorbing, scrutinising, rejecting, his terrific seriousness, his ever-active mind needed a counterpoise. And only art could provide this.

  Thus I fulfilled all the requirements he would look for in a friend: I had nothing in common with his former classmate; I had nothing to do with the civil service; and I lived entirely for art. In addition I knew a lot about music. The similarity of our inclinations welded us closely together as did the dissimilarity of our temperaments.

  I leave it to others to judge whether people who, like Adolf, find their way with a sleep-walker’s sureness, pick up at random the companion they need for that particular part of their path, or whether fate chooses for them. All I can say is that from our first meeting in the theatre up to his decline into misery in Vienna I was that companion for Adolf Hitler.

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  Chapter 3

  Portrait of the Young Hitler

  I have no photograph of Adolf taken during the years of our friendship – probably there are none of him from this period. The absence of photos from that epoch is by no means odd. At the turn of the century there were no cameras which one could carry comfortably, and even if there had been we could not have afforded one. If you wanted a portrait done, you went to a studio. This was also expensive and needed a lot of thought before indulging. As far as I remember, my friend never expressed the need to be photographed. He was never vain, not even when Stefanie entered his life. I suppose there are no more than five photos of Adolf Hitler taken during his formative years.

  The earliest known photograph is that of the baby Adolf a few months old in 1889. It shows the characteristic proportions of nose – cheeks – mouth, the light, piercing eyes and the fringe. What strikes one most about this portrait is the boy’s great likeness to his mother. I noticed it at once on first meeting Frau Hitler. On the other hand, his sister Paula resembled their father. I never knew him and so I rely on what Frau Hitler told me.

  The photos from Hitler’s schooldays are all of the whole class – there are no portraits; despite the lapse of time between them, we see the same alien face in both as if nothing had changed it. For me, they reflect the essential characteristic of his personality, that ‘I remain unchanged’ look. There is a sketch of his profile from schooldays at Steyr when he was sixteen; the artist, Sturmlechner, called it ‘nach der Natur’ – ‘true to life’. He was an amateur, of course, but nevertheless I consider it to be a pretty good likeness.

  Adolf was of middle height and slender, at that time already taller than his mother. His physique was far from sturdy, rather too thin for its height, and he was not at all strong. His health, in fact, was rather poor, which he was the first to regret. He had to take special care of himself during the foggy and damp winters which prevailed in Linz. He was ill from time to time during that period and coughed a lot. In short, he had weak lungs.

  His nose was quite straight and well-proportioned, but in no way remarkable. His forehead was high and receded a little. I was always sorry that even in those days he had the habit of combing his hair straight down to his brow. Yet this traditional forehead – nose – mouth description seems rather ridiculous to me. For in this countenance the eyes were so outstanding that that one did not notice anything else. Never in my life have I seen any other person whose appearance – how shall I put it – was so completely dominated by the eyes. They were the light eyes of his mother, but her somewhat staring, penetrating gaze was even more marked in the son and had even more force and expressiveness. It was uncanny how these eyes could change their expression, especially when Adolf was speaking. To me his sonorous voice meant much less than the expression of his eyes. In fact, Adolf spoke with his eyes, and even when his lips were silent one knew what he wanted to say. After he first came to our house and I introduced him to my mother, she said to me in the evening, ‘What eyes your friend has!’ And I remember quite distinctly that there was more fear than admiration in her words. If I am asked where one could perceive, in his youth, this man’s exceptional qualities, I can only answer ‘in the eyes’.

  Naturally, his extraordinary eloquence, too, was striking. But I was then too inexperienced to attach to it any special significance for the future. I, for one, was certain that Hitler one day would be a great artist, a poet I thought at first, then a great painter, until later, in Vienna, he convinced me that his real talent was in the field of architecture. But for these artistic ambitions his eloquence was of no use, rather a hindrance. Nevertheless, I always liked to listen to him. His language was very refined. He disliked dialect, in particular Viennese, the soft melodiousness of which was utterly repulsive to him. To be sure, Hitler did not speak Austrian-German in the true sense. Rather, in his diction, especially in the rhythm of his speech, there was something Bavarian. Perhaps this was due to the fact that, from his third to his sixth year, the real formative years for speech, he lived in Passau, where his father was then a customs official.

  There is no doubt that my friend Adolf had shown a gift for oratory from his earliest youth. And he knew it. He liked to talk, and talked without pause. Sometimes when he soared too high in his fantasies I could not help suspecting that all this was nothing but an exercise in oratory. But then again I thought otherwise. Did I not take everything for gospel that he said? Sometimes Adolf would try out his powers of oratory on me or on others. It always stuck in my memory how, when not yet eighteen, he convinced my father that he should release me from his workshop and send me to Vienna to the Conservatoire. In view of the awkward and unforthcoming nature of my father this was a considerable achievement. From the moment I had this proof of his talent – for me so decisive – I considered that there was nothing that Hitler could not achieve by a convincing speech.

  He was in the habit of emphasising his words by measured and studied gestures. Now and then, when he was speaking on one of his favourite subjects, such as the bridge over the Danube, the rebuilding of the museum or even the subterranean railway station which he had planned for Linz, I would interrupt him and ask him how he imagined he would ever carry out these projects – we were only impoverished devils. Then he would throw at me a strange and hostile glance as though he had not understood my question at all. I never got an answer; at the most he would shut me up with a wave of his hand. Later I got used to it and ceased to find it ridiculous that the sixteen- or seventeen-year-old boy should develop gigantic projects and expound them to me down to the last detail. If I had listened only to his words the whole thing would have appeared to be either idle fantasy or sheer lunacy, but the eyes convinced me that he was in deadly earnest.

  Adolf set great store by good manners and correct behaviour. He observed with painstaking punctiliousness the rules of social conduct, however little he thought of society itself. He always emphasised the position of his father, who as a customs official ranked more or less with a captain in the army. Hearing him speak of his father, one would never have imagined how violently he disliked the idea of being a civil servant. Nevertheless, there was in his bearing something very precise. He would never forget to send regards to my people, and every postcard bore greetings to my ‘esteemed pa
rents’.

  When we lodged together in Vienna, I discovered that every evening he would put his trousers carefully under the mattress so that the next morning he could rejoice in a faultless crease. Adolf realised the value of a good appearance and, in spite of his lack of vanity, knew how to make the best of himself. He made excellent use of his undoubted histrionic talents, which he cleverly combined with his gift for oratory. I used to ask myself why Adolf, in spite of all these pronounced capabilities, did not get on better in Vienna; only later did I realise that professional success was not at all his ambition. People who knew him in Vienna could not understand the contradiction between his well-groomed appearance, his educated speech and his self-assured bearing on the one hand, and the starveling existence that he led on the other, and judged him either haughty or pretentious. He was neither. He just did not fit into any bourgeois order.

  Adolf had brought starvation to a fine art, though he ate very well when occasion offered. To be sure, in Vienna he generally lacked the money for food. But even if he had it, he would prefer to starve and spend it on a theatre seat. He had no comprehension of enjoyment of life as others knew it. He did not smoke, he did not drink, and in Vienna, for instance, he lived for days on milk and bread only.

  With his contempt for everything pertaining to the body, sport, which was then coming into fashion, meant nothing to him. I read somewhere of how audaciously the young Hitler had swum across the Danube. I do not recollect anything of the sort; the most swimming we did was an occasional dip in the Rodel stream. He showed some interest in the bicycle club, mainly because they ran an ice-rink in the winter. And this, only because the girl he adored used to practise skating there.

  Walking was the only exercise that really appealed to Adolf. He walked always and everywhere and even in my workshop and in my room he would stride up and down. I recall him always on the go. He could walk for hours without getting tired. We used to explore the surroundings of Linz in all directions. His love of nature was pronounced, but in a very personal way. Unlike other subjects, nature never attracted him as a matter for study; I hardly ever remember seeing him with a book on the subject. Here was the limit of his thirst for knowledge. At school he had once been very keen on botany and had cultivated a little herb garden, but it was simply a schoolboy’s fancy and nothing more. Details did not interest him, but only nature as a whole. He referred to it as ‘the outdoors’. This expression sounded as familiar on his lips as the word ‘home’. And in fact he did feel at home with nature. As early as the first years of our friendship I discovered his peculiar preference for nocturnal rambles, or even for staying overnight in some unfamiliar district.

  Being in the outdoors had an extraordinary effect on him. He was then quite a different person from what he was in town. Certain sides of his character revealed themselves nowhere else. He was never so collected and concentrated as when walking along the quiet paths in the beech-woods of the Mühlviertel, or at night when we took a quick walk on the Freinberg. To the rhythm of his steps his thoughts would flow more smoothly and to better purpose than elsewhere. For a long time I could not understand one peculiar contradiction in him. When the sun shone brightly in the streets and a fresh, revivifying wind brought the smell of the woods into the town, an irresistible force drove him out of the narrow, stuffy streets into the woods and fields. But hardly had we reached the open country, than he would assure me that it would be impossible for him to live in the country again. It would be terrible for him to have to live in a village. For all his love of nature, he was always glad when we got back to the town.

  As I grew to know him better, I also came to understand this apparent contradiction. He needed the town, the variety and abundance of its impressions, experiences and events; he felt there that he had his share in everything, that there was nothing in which his interest was not engaged. He needed people with their contrasting interests, their ambitions, intentions, plans and desires. Only in this problem-laden atmosphere did he feel at home. From this point of view the village was altogether too simple, too insignificant, too unimportant, and did not provide enough scope for his limitless need to take an interest in everything. Besides, for him, a town was interesting in itself as an agglomeration of houses and buildings. It was understandable that he should want to live only in a town.

  On the other hand, he needed an effective counterweight to the town, which always troubled and excited him and made constant demands on his interests and talents. He found this in nature, which even he could not try to change and improve because its eternal laws are beyond the reach of the human will. Here he could once more find his own self, since here he was not obliged, as he was in town, eternally to be taking sides.

  My friend had a special way of making nature serve him. He used to seek out a lonely spot outside the town, which he could visit again and again. Every bush and every tree was familiar to him. There was nothing to disturb his contemplative mood. Nature surrounded him like the walls of a quiet, friendly room in which he could cultivate undisturbed his passionate plans and ideas.

  For some time, on fine days, he used to frequent a bench on the Turmleitenweg where he established a kind of open-air study. There he would read his books, sketch and paint in water-colours. Here were born his first poems. Another spot, which later became a favourite, was even more lonely and secluded. We would sit on a high, overhanging rock looking down on the Danube. The sight of the gently flowing river always moved Adolf. How often did my friend tell me of his plans up there! Sometimes he would be overcome by his feelings and give free rein to his imagination. I remember his once describing to me so vividly Krimhild’s journey to the country of the Huns that I imagined I could see the mighty ships of the kings of Burgundy drifting down the river.

  Quite different were our far-ranging excursions. Not much preparation was necessary – a strong walking stick was the only requisite. With his everyday clothes Adolf would wear a coloured shirt and, as a sign of his intention to undertake a long trip, would sport, instead of the usual tie, a silk cord with two tassels hanging down. We would not take any food with us, but somewhere would manage to find a bit of dry bread and a glass of milk. What wonderful, carefree times those were!

  We despised railways and coaches and went everywhere on foot. Whenever we combined our Sunday trip with an outing for my parents, which for us had the advantage that my father treated us to a good meal in a country inn, we started out early enough to meet them at our destination, to which they had come by train. My father was particularly fond of a little village called Walding, which attracted us because nearby was the Rodel stream in which we liked to bathe on warm summer days.

  A little incident stands out in my memory. Adolf and I had left the inn for a bathe. We were both fairly good swimmers, but my mother, nevertheless, was nervous. She followed us and stood on a protruding rock to watch us. The rock sloped down to the water and was covered with moss. My poor mother, while she was anxiously watching us, slipped on the smooth moss and slid into the water. I was too far away to help her at once, but Adolf immediately jumped in after her and dragged her out. He always remained attached to my parents. As late as 1944, on my mother’s 80th birthday, he sent her a food parcel.

  Adolf was particularly fond of the Mühlviertel. From the Pöstlingberg we would walk across the Holzpoldl and the Elendsimmerl to Gramastetten or wander through the woods round the Lichtenhag ruins. Adolf measured the walls, though not much of them remained, and entered the measurements in his sketchbook, which he always carried with him. Then with a few strokes he sketched the original castle, drew in the moat and the drawbridge and he adorned the walls with fanciful pinnacles and turrets. He exclaimed there once to my surprise, ‘This is the ideal setting to my sonnet!’ But when I wanted to know more about it he said, ‘I must first see what I make of it.’ And on our way home he confessed that he was going to try and extend the material into a play.

  We would go to St Georgen on the Gusen to find out what relics of that
famous battle in the Peasants’ War still remained. When we were unsuccessful Adolf had a strange idea. He was convinced that the people who lived there would have some faint memory of that great battle. The following day he went again alone, after a vain attempt to get my father to give me the day off. He spent two days and nights there, but I do not remember with what result.

  For the sole reason that Adolf wanted, for a change, to see his beloved Linz from the east, I had to make with him the unattractive climb up the Pfennigberg, in which the Linzers, as he complained, did not show enough interest. I also liked the view of the city, but least of all from this side. Nevertheless, Adolf remained for hours in this uninviting spot, sketching.

  On the other hand, St Florian became for me, too, a place of pilgrimage, for here, where Anton Bruckner had worked and hallowed the surroundings by his memory, we imagined that we actually met ‘God’s musician’ and heard his inspired improvisations on the great organ in the magnificent church. Then we would stand in front of the simple gravestone let into the floor beneath the choir, where the great master had been buried ten years earlier. The wonderful monastery had aroused my friend to the heights of enthusiasm. He had stood in front of the glorious staircase for an hour or more – at any rate much too long for me. And how much did he admire the splendour of the library! But the deepest impression was made on him by the contrast between the over-decorated apartments of the monastery and Bruckner’s simple room. When he saw its humble furniture, he was strengthened in his belief that on this earth genius almost always goes hand in hand with poverty.