The Young Hitler I Knew

by August Kubizek

  There is another incident I should like to recount. One evening, at the corner of Mariahilferstrasse, a well-dressed, prosperous-looking man spoke to us and asked us about ourselves. When we told him that we were students (‘My friend studies music,’ explained Adolf, ‘and I architecture’) he invited us to supper at the Hotel Kummer. He allowed us to order anything we pleased and for once Adolf could eat as many tarts and pastries as he could manage. Meanwhile, he told us that he was a manufacturer from Vöcklabruck and did not like anything to do with women, as they were only gold diggers. I was especially interested in what he said about the chamber music which appealed to him. We thanked him, he came out of the restaurant with us, and we went home. There Adolf asked me if I liked the man. ‘Very much,’ I replied, ‘A very cultured man, with pronounced artistic leanings.’ ‘And what else?’ continued Adolf with an enigmatic expression on his face. ‘What else should there be?’ I asked surprised. ‘As apparently you don’t understand, Gustl, what it’s all about, look at this little card!’

  ‘Which card?’ In fact, this man had slipped Adolf a card without my noticing it, on which he had scribbled an invitation to visit him at the Hotel Kummer. ‘He’s a homosexual,’ explained Adolf in a matter-of-fact manner. I was startled. I had never even heard the word, much less had I any conception of what it actually meant. So Adolf explained this phenomenon to me. Naturally this too had long been one of his problems for contemplation and, as an abnormal practice, he wished to see it fought against relentlessly, and he himself scrupulously avoided all contact with such men. The visiting card of the famous manufacturer from Vöcklabruck disappeared into our stove.

  It seemed to me quite natural that Adolf should turn with disgust and repugnance from these and other sexual aberrations of the big city, that he refrained from masturbation which was commonly indulged in by youths, and that in all matters of sex he obeyed those strict rules that he had laid down for himself and for the future state. Then why did he not try to escape from his loneliness, to make friends and find fresh stimulus in serious, intelligent and progressive company? Why did he always remain the lone wolf, who avoided any contact with people, although he was passionately interested in all human affairs? How easy it would have been for him, with his obvious talents, to win himself a place in those social circles in Vienna which held themselves aloof from the general decadence, from which he would have gained not only new insight and enlightenment, but which would have wrought a change in his lonely life. There were many more thoroughly decent people in Vienna than the other kind, though they were less in evidence. So he had no reason to avoid people on moral grounds. As a matter of fact it was not arrogance that held him back. It was rather his poverty, and the consequent sensitivity that caused him to live on his own. Moreover, he thought he was lowering himself if he went to a social gathering, or any kind of distraction. He had too high an opinion of himself for a superficial flirtation or for a merely physical relationship with a girl. For that matter, he would never have allowed me to indulge in such affairs. Any step in this direction would have meant the inevitable end of our friendship as, apart from from the distaste with which Adolf viewed such connections, he would never have tolerated my having any interest in other people. As always, our friendship had to be utterly exclusive of all other interests.

  One day, although I knew how opposed Adolf was to all social activities, I nevertheless attempted to arrange something for him. The opportunity which occurred seemed to me too good to be missed.

  Sometimes music lovers came to the Conservatoire office looking for students to take part in a musical evening at their houses. This meant not only much-needed extra money – we usually received a fee of five crowns, as well as supper – but also brought a little social glamour into my humble student’s life. As a good viola player I was much sought after, and it was through this that I came to know the family of a wealthy manufacturer in the Heiligenstädterstrasse, Dr Jahoda. They were people with a deep appreciation of art, of very cultivated tastes, a really intellectual group of the kind that only flourished in Vienna, who traditionally enriched the artistic life of the city. When the opportunity arose at table I mentioned my friend, and was invited to bring him with me next time. This was what I and been aiming at, and now I was content.

  Adolf did indeed accompany me, and he enjoyed himself very much. He was particularly impressed with the library, which for Adolf was the real yardstick for judging these people. What pleased him less, however, was that throughout the whole evening he had to remain a silent listener although he himself had chosen this role. On the way home, he said he would have got on quite well with these people, but as he was not a musician he had not been able to join in the conversation. Nevertheless, he also came with me to musical evenings in one or two other houses where it was only his inadequate dress that upset him.

  In the midst of this corrupt city, my friend surrounded himself with a wall of unshakeable principles which enabled him to build up an inner freedom in spite of all the dangers around him. He was afraid of infection, as he often said. Now I understand that he meant not only venereal infection but a much more general infection, namely the danger of being caught up in the prevailing conditions and finally being dragged down into the vortex of corruption. It is not surprising that no one understood him, that they took him for an eccentric, and that those few who came in contact with him called him presumptuous and arrogant.

  He went his way untouched by what went on around him, but also untouched by a really great, consuming love. He remained a man alone and – an odd contradiction – in strict monk-like asceticism guarded the holy flame of life.

  * * *

  Chapter 23

  Political Awakening

  The picture of my friend as I have drawn it so far would be incomplete without a reference to his immense interest in politics. If I deal with it only at the end of this book and, in spite of all my efforts, inadequately, it is not because of my lack of understanding, but because my interest lay more in art and was hardly concerned with politics at all.

  Even more so than in Linz, I felt myself a budding artist at the Vienna Conservatoire and had no wish to be mixed up in politics. My friend’s development was just in the opposite direction. Though in Linz his interest in art had far surpassed that in politics, in Vienna, the centre of political life of the Habsburg Empire, politics prevailed to the extent of absorbing all other interests.

  I began to understand how almost every problem which he met led him ultimately into the political sphere, however little connection it might have with politics. His original way of looking at the phenomena which surrounded him through the eyes of an artist and aesthete turned increasingly into a habit of regarding them from a politician’s standpoint, as he reported in Mein Kampf:

  In the time of my bitter struggle between spiritual development and cold reason, the view of life on the streets of Vienna provided me with invaluable insight. The time came eventually when I no longer wandered like a blind man through the city, but with open eyes saw not only the buildings but also the people.

  Human beings interested him so much that he began to adjust his professional plans to political considerations. For, if he really wanted to build all that was ready in his mind and even partly laid down in elaborate schemes – a new Linz embellished by impressive edifices such as a bridge over the Danube, a city hall, etc., and a Vienna whose slums were to be replaced by vast residential districts, a revolutionary arm had first to put an end to the existing political conditions which had become unbearable, and to open up the possibility for creative work on an ambitious scale.

  Politics came to assume an increasingly important position in his scale of values. The most difficult problems became easy when they were transferred to the political plane. With the same consistency as that with which he explored all phenomena which occupied him until he had reached rock bottom, he discovered amidst the noisy, political life of the metropolis the focal point of all political events: parliament
.

  ‘Come with me, Gustl,’ he said one day. I asked him where he wanted to go – I had to attend lectures and to practise for my piano examination, but my objections did not impress him at all. He said that none of that was as important as what he intended to do; he had already got a ticket for me. I wondered what this could be – an organ concert perhaps, or a conducted tour through the picture gallery of the Hof Museum? But my lectures and exam? It would be very bad for me if I failed. ‘Oh, come on, hurry!’ he cried angrily. I was familiar with that look on his face, which would not tolerate any contradiction. Besides it must be something very special, for it was unusual for Adolf to be up and about as early as half-past eight in the morning. So I yielded and went with him to the Ring. At nine o’clock sharp we turned into the Stadiongasse and stopped in front of a small, side entrance where a few nondescript people, idlers apparently, had collected. At long last I saw daylight: ‘To parliament?’ I said apprehensively: ‘What am I supposed to do there?’

  I remembered that Adolf had occasionally mentioned his visits to parliament – personally I considered it a sheer waste of time, but before I could say another word, he pressed the ticket into my hand, the door opened and we were directed to the strangers’ gallery. Looking down from the gallery, one had a very good view of the imposing semi-circle which the great assembly chamber formed. Its classic beauty would have provided a fitting background for any artistic performance – a concert, a choir singing hymns or even, with some adjustments, an opera.

  Adolf tried to explain to me what was really happening:

  The man who sits up there, looking rather helpless, and who rings a bell now and then, is chairman of the house. The worthies on the raised seats are the ministers, in front of them are the stenographers, the only people who do any work in the house. That is why I rather like them, though I can assure you that these hard-working men are of no importance whatsoever. On the opposite benches there should be seated all the deputies of the territories and provinces represented in the Austrian parliament, but most of them are strolling around the lobbies.

  My friend went on to describe the procedure. One member had tabled a motion and was now speaking in support of it. Almost all the other deputies, not being interested in the motion, had left the room but soon the chairman called for a debate and things became lively. Adolf was really well versed in parliamentary procedure; he even had an order paper in front of him. Everything happened exactly as he had foretold.

  To put it into musical terminology, as soon as the solo performance of the deputy had ended, the orchestra struck up. The deputies flowed back into the chamber and all started shouting together, interrupting each other remorselessly in the process. The chairman rang his bell. The deputies responded by lifting the lids of their desks and banging them down again. Some whistled and words of abuse shouted in German, Czech, Italian and God knows what other languages filled the air.

  I looked at Adolf. Was not this the appropriate moment to leave? But what had happened to my friend? He had jumped to his feet, his hands clenched, his face burning with excitement. This being so, I preferred to remain quietly in my seat although I had no idea what the tumult was about.

  Parliament attracted my friend more and more whilst I tried to wriggle out of it. Once when Adolf had forced me to go with him – I would have risked the ending of our friendship if I had refused – a Czech member was ‘filibustering’. Adolf explained to me that this was a speech only made to fill in time and prevent another member from speaking. It did not matter what the Czech said, he could even go on repeating his words, but on no account must he stop. It really seemed to me as though this man was speaking all the time da capo al fine. Of course, I did not understand a word of Czech, nor did Adolf, and I was really upset at wasting my time.

  ‘You don’t mind if I go now?’ I said to Adolf.

  ‘What, now, in the middle of the thing?’ he replied angrily.

  ‘But I don’t understand a word the man is saying.’

  ‘You don’t have to understand it. This is “filibustering”. I’ve already explained it to you.’

  ‘So I can go then?’

  ‘No!’ he cried furiously, and pulled me back on to the seat by my coat-tails.

  So I just sat there and let the valiant Czech, who was already nearly exhausted, talk on. I have never been so puzzled by Adolf as I was at that moment. He was so extraordinarily intelligent and certainly had all his senses about him, and I just could not comprehend how he was able to sit there, tense, listening to every word of a speech which, after all, he did not understand. Perhaps the fault is mine, I thought, and presumably I do not realise wherein lies the essence of politics.

  In those days I often asked myself why Adolf compelled me to go with him to parliament. I could not solve this riddle until one day I realised that he needed a partner with whom he could discuss his own impressions. On such days he would wait impatiently for my return in the evening, Hardly had I opened the door then he would start, ‘Where have you been all this time?’ and before I had had time to get myself a bite of supper would come, ‘When are you going to bed?’

  This question had a particular significance. As our room was so small, Adolf could only walk up and down if either I crouched on the stool behind the piano or went to bed, and so he wanted to clear the decks for what he wanted to say.

  No sooner had I crept into bed than he began to stride up and down, holding forth. If only by the excited tone of his voice, I could tell how much his thoughts were pressing on him. He simply had to have an outlet in order to bear the enormous tension.

  So there I lay in bed while Adolf, as usual, strode up and down, ranting at me as passionately as though I were a political power who could decide the existence or non-existence of the German people, instead of only a poor little music student. What was it then that moved him so profoundly? Basically always the same thing: his overwhelming attachment to Germanness. With true fervour he clung to the people of his origins, and nothing on earth did he place higher than the love he had for what was German. Within the Danube monarchy this Germanness was engaged in a fierce struggle for its national identity. The argument had been made somewhere, as part of this warring, that Austrian-Germans were not of the best blood. In Mein Kampf he wrote on this point:

  It had to be made plain that if the German in Austria was not really of the best blood, he would never have been able to impress his stamp so indelibly on a state of 52 million to the extent that in Germany there was a mistaken impression abroad that Austria was a German-racial state. It was a nonsense but a shining testimony for the 10 million Germans of Austria.

  In his book he also alluded to ‘enormous, unheard-of burdens’ demanding a sacrifice in ‘taxation’ and ‘blood’, but ‘what hurt us most’ was the fact that the whole Austro-Hungarian system was supported morally by the alliance with Germany so that the inexorable decay of Germanness in the old monarchy was to a certain extent sanctioned by Germany itself. But where would this help come from to destroy it, if not from Germany itself? The old Austro-Hungarian Kaiser was incapable of leading a struggle from within. His heir Franz Ferdinand, on whom many hopes rested, was married to a Czech countess and was planning the setting-up of a strong Catholic-Slav bloc. This meant that the people of German stock in Austria were out on a limb and left to fight for themselves. With overflowing heart, Adolf took part in this passionate struggle. That the political situation for the Germans in Austria seemed so hopeless, lacking any solution, worked him up and made him hate the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

  Another of these nocturnal talks remains in my memory. Hysterically he described the sufferings of this people, the fate that threatened it, and its future full of danger. He was near tears, but after these bitter words, he came back to more optimistic thoughts. Once more he was building the ‘Reich of all the Germans’ which put the ‘guest nations’, as he called the other races of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where they belonged.

  Sometimes, when his diatribe
s became too lengthy, I fell asleep. As soon as he noticed it, he shook me awake and shouted at me to ask whether I was no longer interested in his words – if so, I should go on sleeping, like all those who had no national conscience. So I made an effort and forced myself to keep my eyes open.

  Later, Adolf developed more friendly moods on these occasions. Instead of losing himself in Utopia, he raised questions which he thought would be of more interest to me. As for instance one day when he inveighed against the savings groups which had been formed in many of the small inns of the working class districts. Each member paid in a weekly sum and received his savings at Christmas. The treasurer was usually the innkeeper. Adolf criticised these groups because the money the worker spent on such ‘savings evenings’ was greater than the amount laid by, so that in reality the innkeeper was the only one to benefit. Another time he described to me in vivid colours what he imagined the student hostels would be like in his ‘ideal state’. Bright, sunny bedrooms, common rooms for study, music and drawing, simple but nourishing food, free tickets for concerts, operas and exhibitions, and free transport to their colleges.

  One night he spoke of the aeroplane of the Wright brothers. He quoted from a newspaper that these famous aviators had built a small, comparatively lightweight gun into their aircraft and had made experiments to assess the effect that shooting from the air would be likely to have. Adolf, who was a pronounced pacifist, was outraged. As soon as a new invention is made, he said, it is immediately put to the service of war. Who wants war? he asked. Certainly not the little man – far from it. Wars are arranged by crowned and uncrowned rulers who in turn are guided and driven by their armament industries. While these gentlemen earn gigantic sums and remain far from the firing line, the ‘little man’ has to risk his life without knowing to what purpose.