The Young Hitler I Knew

by August Kubizek

  Altogether the ‘little man’, the ‘poor betrayed masses’, played a dominating role in his thoughts. One day we saw workers demonstrating on the Ring. We were hemmed in among the onlookers near the parliament and got a good view of the exciting scene. Is this the mood, I asked myself anxiously, that Adolf calls the ‘storm of the revolution’? Some men walked ahead of the procession carrying a big banner on which was written the one word ‘Hunger’. There could not have been any more stirring appeal to my friend because he had so often suffered himself from gnawing hunger. There he stood, next to me, and absorbed the picture eagerly. However strongly he might have felt for these people, he remained aloof and viewed the whole event, in all its detail, as objectively and coolly as though his only interest were to study the technique of such a demonstration. In spite of his solidarity with the ‘little man’ he would never have dreamed of taking an active part in this manifestation which was, in fact, protesting against the recent increase in the price of beer.

  More and more people were arriving. The whole Ring seemed to be crammed with excited humanity. Red flags were carried, but the seriousness of the situation was shown by the ragged appearance and the hunger-lined faces of the demonstrators far more than by flags and slogans.

  The head of the procession had reached parliament and was trying to storm it. Suddenly the mounted police who had accompanied the protesters drew their swords and began to lay about them. The reply was a hail of stones. For a moment the situation was balanced on a razor’s edge, but in the end police reinforcements manage to disperse the demonstrators.

  The spectacle had shaken Adolf to the core, but not until we arrived home did he voice his feelings. Yes, he was on the side of the hungry, the under-privileged, but he was also against the men who organised such demonstrations. Who are the wire-pullers standing behind these doubly-betrayed masses, guiding them according to their will? None of them appeared on the scene. Why? Because it suited them better to conduct their affairs in obscurity – they did not want to risk their lives. Who are the leaders of the wretched masses? Not men who had themselves experienced the misery of the ‘little man’, but ambitious politicians, lusting for power, who wanted to exploit the people’s poverty for their own benefit. An outburst of rage against these political vultures brought my friend’s embittered harangue to an end. That was his demonstration.

  One question tormented him after such occurrences, although he never gave expression to it: Where did he himself belong? To judge by his own circumstances and the social environment in which he lived, there was no doubt that he belonged to those who followed the hunger banner. He lived in a miserable, bug-ridden back room; many times his lunch consisted of nothing but a piece of dry bread. Some of the demonstrators were perhaps better off than he. Why, therefore, did he not march with these men? What held him back?

  Perhaps he felt that he belonged to a different social class. He was the son of an Austrian state official, whose rank was the equivalent of captain in the Army. He remembered his father as a much-respected customs officer, to whom people raised their hats, and whose word carried much weight amongst his friends. His father had absolutely nothing to do with these people in the street.

  Greater even than his fear of being infected by the moral and political decadence of the ruling classes was his fear of becoming a proletarian. Undoubtedly he lived like one, but he did not want to become one. Perhaps what drove him to his intensive studies was his instinctive feeling that only a thorough education could save him from descending to the level of the masses.

  In the last resort, the decisive point for Adolf was that he did not feel attracted to any of the existing parties or movements. To be sure, he often told me that he was a convinced follower of Schönerer, but he said so only in the privacy of our room. He, the hungry, penniless student, would have cut a very poor figure in the ranks of Georg Ritter von Schönerer. The Schönerer movement would have needed much stronger socialist tendencies to capture Adolf fully. What had Schönerer to offer to the hungry masses demonstrating in the Ring? Nothing. On the other hand, however, the Social Democrats had no comprehension of German nationalism in Austria. The international Marxist basis on which this movement had developed held at arm’s length the broad masses – and that is ultimately the people themselves – from involvement in the decisions which were just as important for the fate of the people as was a solution to the social question. Among the leading political personalities of those days, Adolf had most admiration for the Bürgermeister of Vienna, Karl Lueger, but what put him off his party was the connection with the clergy, which interfered constantly in political questions. Thus, in those days, Adolf found no spiritual home for his political ideals.

  In spite of his unwillingness to join a party or organisation – with one exception which I shall mention later – one had only to walk along the street with him to see how intensely interested he was in the fate of others. The city of Vienna offered him excellent object lessons in this respect. For instance, when home-going workers passed us by, Adolf would grip my arm and say, ‘Did you hear, Gustl? Czech!’ Another time we encountered some brickmakers speaking loudly in Italian, with florid gestures. ‘There you have your German Vienna!’ he cried indignantly.

  This too was one of his oft-repeated phrases: ‘German Vienna’, but Adolf pronounced it with a bitter undertone. Was this Vienna, into which streamed from all sides Czechs, Magyars, Croats, Poles, Italians, Slovaks, Ruthenians and above all Galician Jews, still indeed a German city? In the state of affairs in Vienna my friend saw a symbol of the struggle of the Germans in the Habsburg Empire. He hated the babel in the streets of Vienna, this ‘incest incarnate’ as he called it later. He hated this state which ruined Germanism, and the pillars which supported this state: the reigning house, the nobility, the capitalists and the Jews.

  This Habsburg state, he felt, must fall, and the sooner the better, for every moment of its continued existence cost the Germans honour, property and their very life. He saw in the fanatical internecine strife of its races the decisive symptoms of its coming downfall. He visited parliament to feel, so to speak, the pulse of the patient, whose early demise was expected by all. He looked forward to that hour full of impatience, for only the collapse of the Habsburg Empire could open the road to those schemes of which he dreamed in his lonely hours.

  His accumulated hatred of all forces which threatened Germanness was concentrated mainly on the Jews, who played a leading role in Vienna. I soon came to notice this and a small, seemingly trivial occurrence stands out in my memory.

  I had come to the conclusion that my friend could no longer go on in his poverty-stricken circumstances. The easiest way of helping him, I thought, would be to make use of some of his literary work. A fellow student of mine at the Conservatoire worked as a journalist on the Wiener Tagblatt, and I mentioned Adolf to him. The young man was full of sympathy for Adolf’s precarious situation and suggested that my friend should bring some of his work to him in his office, where the matter could be discussed. During the night, Adolf wrote a short story of which I remember nothing but the title.

  It was The Next Morning and an ominous one, for the next morning when we went to see my fellow student there was a terrific row. As soon as Adolf had seen the man he turned about even before he had entered the room, and going down the stairs shouted at me, ‘You idiot! Didn’t you see that he is a Jew?’ Actually I had not, but in future I took care not to burn my fingers.

  Things got worse. One day, when I was very busy with preparations for my exam, Adolf stormed into our room, full of excitement. He had just come from the police, he said: there had been an incident in the Mariahilferstrasse, connected with a Jew of course. A ‘Handelee’ had been standing in front of the Gerngross store. The word ‘Handelee’ was used to designate Eastern Jews who, dressed in caftan and boots, sold shoe-laces, buttons, braces and other haberdashery in the streets. The Handelee was the lowest stage in the career of those quickly assimilated Jews, who often occupied
leading positions in Austria’s economic life. The Handelees were forbidden to beg, but this man had whiningly approached passers-by, his hand outstretched, and had collected some money. A policeman asked him to produce his papers. He began to wring his hands and said that he was a poor, sick man who had only this little trading to live on, but he had not been begging. The policeman took him to the police station and asked bystanders to act as witnesses. In spite of his dislike of publicity, Adolf had presented himself as a witness, and he saw with his own eyes that the Handelee had 3,000 crowns in his caftan, conclusive evidence, according to Adolf, of the exploitation of Vienna by immigrant Eastern Jews.

  In Mein Kampf he wrote:

  As I was passing through the inner city one day, I came across a person in a long caftan wearing long dreadlocks. ‘Can this be a Jew?’ was my first thought. They didn’t look like this in Linz. I threw the man a few sidelong glances but the more I stared at his foreign face and examined his features one by one, the more my first question took on another aspect. ‘Is this a German?’ As always in such cases, I now began to resolve my doubts by books.

  I well remember at that time how eagerly Adolf studied the Jewish problem, talking to me of it again and again, although I was not interested. At the Conservatoire there were Jews amongst both teachers and students, and I had never had any trouble with them and indeed had made some friends among them. Was not Adolf himself enthusiastic about Gustav Mahler, and was he not fond of the works of Mendelssohn? One should not judge the Jewish question only on the strength of Handelees. I tried cautiously to deflect Adolf from his point of view. His reaction was very strange.

  ‘Come, Gustl,’ he said, and once again to save the fare I had to walk with him to the Brigittenau. I was astounded when Adolf led me to the synagogue there. We entered. ‘Keep your hat on,’ Adolf whispered, and indeed, all the men had their heads covered. Adolf had discovered that at this time a wedding was taking place in the synagogue. The ceremony impressed me deeply. The congregation started with an alternate chant, which I liked. Then the rabbi gave a sermon in Hebrew and finally laid the phylacteries on the foreheads of the bridal pair. I concluded from our strange visit that Adolf really wanted to study thoroughly the Jewish problem and thereby convince himself that the religious practices of the Jews still survived. This, I hoped, might soften his biased view but I was mistaken, for one day Adolf came home and announced decidedly, ‘Today I joined the Anti-Semitic Union and have put down your name as well.’

  Although I had got used to his domineering over me in political matters, this was going too far. It was all the more surprising as Adolf usually avoided joining any society or organisation. I kept silent, but resolved to handle my affairs myself in future.

  Looking back on those days in Vienna and on our long, nocturnal conversations, I can assert that Adolf then adopted that philosophy of life which was to guide him henceforward. He gathered from it his immediate impressions and experiences in the streets and extended and deepened it by his reading. What I heard was its first version, often still unbalanced and immature, but propounded with all the more passion.

  At that time I did not take all these things very seriously because my friend played no part in public life and never met anybody but me, and accordingly all his plans and political projects were floating in mid-air. That later he would bring them to fruition I would never have dared to think.

  * * *

  Chapter 24

  The Lost Friendship

  The competitive examinations at the Conservatoire were over, and I had come out of them very well. Now I had only to conduct the end-of-term concert in the Johannessaal which, in view of the stage fright of the performers – and the conductor – was not an easy task, but everything went well. Much more exciting for me was the second evening when the singer Rossi sang three songs I had composed, and two movements from my sextet for strings were performed for the first time. Both competitions met with great success. Adolf was in the artists’ room when Professor Max Jentsch, my composition teacher, congratulated me. The head of the Conducting School, Gustav Gutheil, also added his congratulations and to crown it all the director of the Conservatoire came into the artists’ room and shook me warmly by the hand. This was a little too much for me, who only a year ago had been working in a dusty upholsterer’s shop. Adolf glowed with enthusiasm and seemed genuinely proud of his friend, but I could well imagine what he was thinking in his heart of hearts. Certainly he had never realised with such bitterness the futility of his time in Vienna as when he saw me in the midst of my resounding triumphs, my feet firmly planted on the road which led to my ultimate goal.

  Only a few more days and the term would end. I was looking forward with great pleasure to going home as, in spite of my successful studies, the dire feeling of homesickness had never left me throughout the time I had been in Vienna.

  Adolf had no home and did not know where he would go. We discussed how we should pass the coming months. Frau Zakreys joined us in our room and asked us hesitantly what our plans were.

  ‘Whatever happens we shall stay together,’ I declared immediately. I did not mean only that I should stay with Adolf–that seemed to me a matter of course – but also that we should both go on lodging with Frau Zakreys, with whom we got on so well. Moreover, my plans were quite decided. Immediately after the end of term I would go to Linz and stay with my parents till the autumn, when I would undergo my eight weeks’ training with the Army Reserve. At the latest, I wanted to be back in Vienna by the second half of November. I promised to send my share of the rent regularly to Frau Zakreys so that she should keep the room for us.

  Frau Zakreys too wanted to visit relatives in Moravia over the next few days, and she was worried about leaving the flat empty, but Adolf reassured the old dear. He would stay there and wait until she came back, then he could still go for a few days to his mother’s family in the Waldviertel. Frau Zakreys was very pleased with this solution and assured us that we had been most satisfactory lodgers: two such nice young gentlemen who paid their rent punctually and never brought girls home you would not find anywhere else in Vienna.

  When I was alone with Adolf, I told him that I would try to get an engagement as a viola player with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra during the next school year. This would make me so much better off that I would be able to help him substantially as well. Adolf, who in those days was very irritable, made no response to my suggestion. Neither did he tell me a word of his future plans, but in view of my own success I did not take offence at this. Moreover, to my great astonishment, I was not instructed to keep him informed about Stefanie but nevertheless I made up my mind to write to him with all that I could find out about her. Adolf promised to write often and keep me informed of everything of interest to me that went on in Vienna.

  The parting was hard for both of us; its date, the beginning of July 1908, is of particular significance. Although it had not always been easy, in spite of my compliant nature, to get on with Adolf, yet our friendship had always triumphed over personal difficulties. We had known each other now for four years and had got used to each other’s ways. The rich treasure of artistic experiences enjoyed together in Linz, as well as the joy of lovely excursions, had been increased and deepened by our time together in Vienna. In that city, Adolf was like a bit of home for me; he had shared the most beautiful impressions of my boyhood, and knew me better than anybody else. It was him that I had to thank for the fact that I was at the Conservatoire.

  This feeling of gratitude, strengthened by a friendship springing from shared experiences, bound me firmly to him. I was more than willing, in the future, to put up with any of the peculiarities caused by his impulsive temperament. With growing maturity and discernment, my appreciation of Adolf as my friend increased, as is proved by the fact that in spite of our cramped quarters and the divergence of our interests, we had got on much better together in Vienna than in Linz. I was prepared, for his sake, to go not only to parliament, and to a synagogue but even
to the Spittelberggasse, and God knows where, and was already looking forward to spending my next year with him.

  Naturally I meant far less to Adolf than he did to me. That I had come with him to Vienna from his home town served to remind him, perhaps unwillingly, of his own difficult family background and the apparent hopelessness of his boyhood though, to be sure, my presence also reminded him of Stefanie. Above all, he had learnt to appreciate me as an eager audience. He could not wish for a better public since, because of his overwhelming gift for persuasion, I agreed with him even when I held a completely different opinion in my heart. For him, and what he had in mind, however, my views were quite unimportant. He needed me just to talk to – after all, he could not sit on the bench in the Schönbrunn and make long speeches to himself. When he was full of an idea and had to unburden himself, then he needed me as a soloist needs an instrument to give expression to his feelings. This, if I may use the expression, ‘instrumental character’ of our friendship rendered me of more value to him than my own modest nature merited.

  So we said goodbye. Adolf assured me for the hundredth time how little he wanted to be left alone. I could imagine, he said, how dull it would be for him alone in the room we shared. Had I not already written the date of my arrival to my parents, perhaps in spite of my attacks of grievous homesickness I might have stayed in Vienna another couple of weeks.

  He accompanied me to the Westbahnhof; I stowed away my luggage and joined him on the platform. Adolf hated sentimentality of any kind. The more anything touched him, the cooler he became. So now he just took both my hands – two hands was most unusual for him – and pressed them firmly. Then he spun on his heel and made for the exit, perhaps a little over-hastily, without once turning round. I felt wretched. I got on to the train and was glad that it started right away and prevented me from changing my mind.