Hitler

by Volker Ullrich

  11 See Franziska Hitler’s marriage license and death certificate in BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/17a. Next to nothing is known about Klara Pölzl’s childhood and youth. See Bavendamm, Der junge Hitler, p. 78f.

  12 Petition reprinted in Zdral, Die Hitlers, p. 24f.

  13 Facsimile of birth and baptism certificate in Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, p. 49.

  14 See Anton Joachimsthaler, Korrektur einer Biographie: Adolf Hitler 1908–1920, Munich, 1989, p. 31; Christa Schroeder, Er war mein Chef: Aus dem Nachlass der Sekretärin von Adolf Hitler, ed. Anton Joachimsthaler, 3rd edition, Munich and Vienna, 1985, pp. 213f.; Olaf Rose (ed.), Julius Schaub: In Hitlers Schatten, Stegen, 2005, p. 337 ff.

  15 On this source material see Bavendamm, Der junge Hitler, pp. 21–4; Ludolf Herbst, Hitlers Charisma: Die Erfindung eines deutschen Messias, Frankfurt am Main, 2010, p. 64f.; Othmar Plöckinger, “Frühe biographische Texte zu Hitler: Zur Bewertung der autobiographischen Texte in ‘Mein Kampf,’ ” in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 58 (2010), pp. 93–114.

  16 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf. Vol. 1: Eine Abrechnung, 7th edition, Munich, 1933, p. 1.

  17 See Marlies Steinert, Hitler, Munich, 1994, p. 24; Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 135: “My youthful German was the dialect that Lower Bavaria speaks—I could never forget it or learn Viennese jargon.”

  18 See, for example, Monologe, p. 26 (dated 27/28 Sept. 1941), p. 171 (dated 3/4 Jan. 1942).

  19 See Jetzinger, Hitlers Jugend, pp. 63f., 122–4.

  20 See Zrdal, Die Hitlers, pp. 30f.

  21 Quoted in Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, p. 13. Hitler told his friend Kubizek that conflicts “often ended with his father beating him.” Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, p. 55. See also Albert Speer, Erinnerungen, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1993, p. 138. Hitler once bragged to his secretary Christa Schröder that he had taken 32 blows without uttering the slightest gasp of pain (Er war mein Chef, p. 63). Compare this with Bavendamm, Der junge Hitler, pp. 114f.

  22 See Bradley F. Smith, Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth, Stanford, 1967, pp. 43–5. In August 1942, Hitler recalled that “his old man was a passionate beekeeper,” adding that he had been “repeatedly stung to the point that he [Hitler] had almost died,” Monologe, p. 324 (dated 3 Aug. 1942).

  23 See Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens, p. 332. Hitler is said to have confided: “That was the most horrible shame I have ever felt. Oh, Frank, I know what a devil alcohol is! In my youth, it was my worst enemy—even worse than my father.” But there are reasons to doubt the truth of this statement. See Jetzinger, Hitlers Jugend, pp. 93f.; Bavendamm, Der junge Hitler, p. 101.

  24 Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Part 1: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941, ed. Elke Fröhlich, Munich, 1998–2006, vol. 2, p. 336 (entry for 9 Aug. 1932). See also ibid., p. 199 (entry for 20 Jan. 1932): “Hitler told moving stories of his childhood. Stories about his strict father and loving mother.”

  25 Quoted in Hamann, Hitlers Wien, p. 16; see Smith, Adolf Hitler, p. 51; on his half-brother Alois Hitler and his son William Patrick see Knopp, Geheimnisse des “Dritten Reiches,” pp. 31–8, 55–70.

  26 Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, p. 53.

  27 Among others, Alice Miller, Am Anfang war Erziehung, Frankfurt am Main, 1980; following on, Christa Mulack, Klara Hitler: Muttersein im Patriarchat, Rüsselsheim, 2005, p. 51; for critics of the psychoanalytical interpretations see Wolfgang Michalka, “Hitler im Spiegel der Psycho-Historie: Zu neueren interdisziplinären Deutungsversuchen der Hitler-Forschung” in Francia, 8 (1980), pp. 595–611; Gerhard Schreiber, Hitler: Interpretationen 1923–1983. Ergebnisse, Methoden und Probleme der Forschung, Darmstadt, 1984, pp. 316–27; Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, pp. 606–7 n63.

  28 Otto Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe: Aufzeichnungen eines Vertrauten 1929–1932, ed. Henry A. Turner, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin and Vienna, 1978, p. 425.

  29 Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 1, p. 390 (entry for 22 July 1938).

  30 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 6. See Hitler, Monologe, p. 375 (dated 29 Aug. 1942): “I spent a lot of time in my school years outside.” In a letter to his childhood friend Fritz Seidl in Graz on 16 Oct. 1923, Hitler recalled “our sunny days as young scallywags we idled away together with others,” BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/14; reprinted in Adolf Hitler, Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924, ed. Eberhard Jäckel with Axel Kuhn, Stuttgart, 1980, no. 585, p. 1038. See Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 6, p. 49 (entry for 19 Aug. 1938): “He told stories about his youth in Leonding and Lambach. It was a happy time for him.”

  31 BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/17a.

  32 Hitler, Monologe, p. 281 (dated 17 Feb. 1942). See Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 3/2, p. 299 (entry for 20 Dec. 1936): “We talked about Karl May and his adventurous life. The Führer loves reading his books.”

  33 Albert Speer, Spandauer Tagebücher, Munich, 2002, p. 523 (entry for 5 May 1960). On his reading of Karl May, see Smith, Adolf Hitler, pp. 66f.; Hamann, Hitlers Wien, pp. 21, 544–8; Bavendamm, Der junge Hitler, pp. 359–76.

  34 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 3. See Otto Dietrich, 12 Jahre mit Hitler, Munich, 1955, p. 166: “In his own telling, even as a boy, Hitler was a wild and hard-to-tame youth.”

  35 Joachim Fest, Hitler: Eine Biographie, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin and Vienna, 1973, p. 37. According to the school register, Hitler attended the Volksschule in Leonding from 27 Feb. 1899 until he transferred to the Realschule in Linz on 17 Sept. 1900; BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/65.

  36 Published in Jetzinger, Hitlers Jugend, pp. 105f. In a letter to a former colleague on 28 April 1935, Heumer described how the assessment had come to pass. After the November 1923 putsch, Angela Raubal had given him a letter from Hitler’s lawyer Lorenz Roder requesting an “objective characterization” of Hitler as a school pupil in order to “combat certain rumour in the hostile press.” BA Koblenz, N 1128/30.

  37 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 6.

  38 See Smith, Adolf Hitler, pp. 69f.; Bavendamm, Adolf Hitler, p. 133.

  39 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 7.

  40 Ibid., p. 16. Klara Hitler’s death announcement in BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/17.

  41 See Jetzinger, Hitlers Jugend, pp. 124–9; Smith, Der junge Hitler, p. 94.

  42 Transcript made by Dr. Leopold Zaumer from Weitra on 16 and 23 Oct. 1938 of statements made by Marie Koppensteiner and Johann Schmidt, both children of Theresia Schmidt, née Pölzl; BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/17a. In April 1938, the city of Weitra made Hitler an honorary citizen, pointing out that the Hitler and Pölzl family homes were only four kilometres away in the town of Spital: “Close family members of the Führer and Reich chancellor live here. The Führer and Reich chancellor also spent some time in his youth here.” BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 51/80.

  43 Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 5, p. 331 (entry for 3 June 1938).

  44 “Unser Führer Adolf Hitler als Student in Steyr von seinem einstigen Lehrer Gregor Goldbacher Prof. i. R.”; BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/17a.

  45 Hitler, Monologe, p. 170 (dated 8 and 9 Jan. 1942); see also ibid., p. 376 (dated 29 Aug. 1942): “At least half of my professors had mental problems.” See also Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier, ed. Henry Picker, Stuttgart, 1976, p. 217 (dated 12 April 1942): “He said he had mostly unpleasant memories of the teachers who had run through his young life.” See Gustav Keller, Der Schüler Adolf Hitler: Die Geschichte eines lebenslangen Amoklaufs, Münster, 2012, p. 110. The author—an educational psychologist—sees Hitler’s poor performance in school as “the decisive trigger of his terrible psychological mis-development.” It led to an inferiority complex for which Hitler tried to compensate with his “exaggerated desire for acknowledgement and power.” Yet Keller’s thesis that “Hitler ran amok for his entire life until finally committing suicide” is far too simplistic (quotations on pp. 3, 118, 121).

  46 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 12. For L. Poetsch see Bavendamm, Der junge Hitler, pp. 136–41. In a letter dated 20 June 1929, Poetsch informed Hitler that his first name was Leopold and
not Ludwig, as the first three editions of My Struggle had read: “Do not hold it against your old teacher, who remembers his former pupil fondly, if he takes the liberty to write to you,” Poetsch gushed. On 2 July 1929, Hitler wrote back to express his gratitude: “They [the lines you wrote] immediately called up memories of my youth and the hours I spent with a teacher to whom I owe countless things and who partly paved the path I’ve travelled down.” Hitler, Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen—Februar 1925 bis Januar 1933. Vol. 3, Part 2: März 1929–Dezember 1929, ed. and with notes by Klaus A. Lankheit, Munich, New Providence, London and Paris, 1994, no. 46, p. 279 with n2.

  47 See Evan Burr Bukey, “Patenstadt des Führers”: Eine Politik- und Sozialgeschichte von Linz 1908–1945, Frankfurt am Main and New York, 1993, p. 16.

  48 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 16.

  49 See Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, p. 23; Hamann, Hitlers Wien, pp. 40f.

  50 Kubizek dates the beginnings of his friendship with Hitler as “All Saints’ Day 1904” (p. 20). But Jetzinger has proven that the two boys met one another in the autumn of 1905; Hitlers Jugend, pp. 137, 141.

  51 See Hamann, Hitlers Wien, p. 77–83 and subsequently, Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, p. 21f. In the late 1930s the main NSDAP archive in Munich charged the journalist Renato Attilo Bleibtreu with locating material relating to Hitler’s youth. He visited August Kubizek, who had been forced to give up his musical career after the First World War and become a local official in the town of Eferding near Linz. Bleibtreu noted: “If Kubitscheck [sic] can write down his recollections of Hitler in the same manner he tells them, they will be one of the most important holdings in the archive.” BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/17a. For Renato Bleibtreu see Brigitte Hamann, Hitlers Edeljude: Das Leben des Armenarztes Eduard Bloch, Munich and Zurich, 2008, pp. 339–49.

  52 Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, pp. 34f.

  53 See Claudia Schmölders, Hitlers Gesicht: Eine physiognomische Biographie, Munich, 2001, pp. 7, 9, 62f., 104, 182.

  54 Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, p. 26.

  55 Ibid., p. 27.

  56 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 15. During a visit to Linz in April 1943, Hitler gave his companions a tour of the city theatre. Albert Speer wrote: “Visibly moved, he showed us the cheap seat in the uppermost rows where he had sat when he saw Lohengrin, Rienzi and other operas for the first time.” Speer, Spandauer Tagebücher, p. 259 (entry for 14 Jan. 1951).

  57 Thomas Mann, “Versuch über das Theater” in Essays I: 1883–1914, Frankfurt am Main, 2002, p. 139.

  58 Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, p. 101.

  59 Quoted in Jetzinger, Hitlers Jugend, p. 132.

  60 Cf. Rienzi episode in Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, pp. 133–42 (quotations on pp. 140f. and 142). Speer related Hitler saying about the Rienzi overture in the summer of 1938: “Listening to this divinely blessed music as a young man in the Linz theatre, it occurred to me that I too would be able to unify the German Reich and make it great.” Spandauer Tagebücher, p. 136, entry for 7 Feb. 1948. On Hitler’s encounter with Kubizek on 3 Aug. 1939 in Bayreuth see Brigitte Hamann, Winifred Wagner oder Hitlers Bayreuth, Munich and Zurich, 2002, pp. 390–2. Bavendamm (Der junge Hitler, p. 282) uncritically accepts Kubizek’s account, writing that as early as 1905, inspired by Rienzi, “Hitler believed in his political ‘mission.’ ” Jochen Köhler advances a similar view when he writes of Hitler’s “mystical initiation”; Wagners Hitler: Der Prophet und sein Vollstrecker, Munich, 1997, p. 35.

  61 Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, p. 117.

  62 Cf. “Stefanie” episode in Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, pp. 76–89: discussed in Jetzinger, Hitlers Jugend, pp. 142–8; Anton Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste: Ein Dokument persönlicher Beziehungen, Munich, 2003, pp. 48–52. See Goebbels, Tagebücher, part I, vol. 2/3, p. 81 (entry for 13 Dec. 1932): “Hitler told us about the great love of his youth. It’s moving how he worships women.” Ibid., vol. 5, p. 331 (entry for 3 June 1938): “The Führer talked of his childhood and his first love in Linz.” Lothar Machtan dismisses Kubizek’s account as a manoeuvre intended to distract from the homosexual overtones of his friendship with Hitler but he offers little proof for this view; Hitlers Geheimnis: Das Doppelleben eines Diktators, Berlin, 2001, pp. 47–57. We cannot, of course, rule out that there was a homosexual component in this “youthful bond,” as Kubizek characterized his relationship to Hitler. On close male relationships at the turn of the century, see Claudia Bruns, Politik des Eros: Der Männerbund in Wissenschaft, Politik und Jugendkultur 1880–1934, Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2008.

  63 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 18.

  64 Facsimile in Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, p. 192. For the four postcards, ibid., pp. 146–9; Jetzinger, Hitlers Jugend, pp. 151–5; printed in Hitler, Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen, nos 3–6, p. 44f. In the mid 1970s, Paula Kubizek stated that she still possessed cards and letters from Hitler and was leaving them to her sons. “I don’t want them to be sold,” she said. “They should stay in the family.” Paula Kubitschek (sic) to Henriette von Schirach, 10 Nov. 1976; BayHStA Munich, Nl H. v. Schirach 3.

  65 Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, p. 145.

  66 Hamann, Hitlers Edeljude, p. 81.

  67 Compare the hospital operations record from 1907 and the notes made by the doctor, Karl Urban, from 16 Nov. 1938; BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/65 and NS 26/17a.

  68 Hamann, Hitlers Wien, p. 52.

  69 Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 18f.

  70 Ibid., p. 19.

  71 Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, pp. 166f.; Hamann, Hitlers Wien, p. 54.

  72 Eduard Bloch, “Erinnerungen an den Führer und dessen verewigte Mutter” (Nov. 1938); BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/65. See also Eduard Bloch on Renato Bleibtreu, 8 Nov. 1938; ibid.

  73 Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, pp. 12, 24.

  74 Rudolph Binion advances this thesis in “…dass ihr mich gefunden habt”: Hitler und die Deutschen, Stuttgart, 1978, p. 38.

  75 Hamann, Hitlers Edeljude, p. 69. At the start of 1908, Hitler sent Bloch a letter wishing him a happy new year, signed “In continuing gratitude, Adolf Hitler.” See Bleibtreu’s report, BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/17a.

  76 Hamann, Hitlers Edeljude, p. 261.

  77 Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, p. 176.

  78 See Hamann, Hitlers Wien, pp. 58, 85. Maser argues for the idea of Hitler as “a man of wealth,” Adolf Hitler, p. 83.

  79 Hamann, Hitlers Wien, pp. 59–62. This correspondence was discovered amidst the effects of Johanna Motloch and confiscated by the Gestapo. Martin Bormann presented Hitler with copies of the letters in Oct. 1942. He described Hitler’s reaction to Heinrich Himmler: “The Führer was very moved by the memory of what he had experienced in the past.” Ibid., p. 590n193.

  80 Hitlers Tischgespräche, p. 276 (dated 10 May 1942); see also Monologe, p. 120 (dated 15/16 Jan. 1942).

  81 See Hamann, Hitlers Edeljude, p. 94.

  82 See Zdral, Die Hitlers, pp. 52, 203–6.

  83 Hamann, Hitlers Wien, p. 63; Hitler, Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen, no. 9, p. 47.

  2 The Vienna Years

  1 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf. Vol. 1: Eine Abrechnung, 7th edition, Munich, 1933, p. 137.

  2 Stefan Zweig, Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers, Stuttgart and Hamburg, p. 27.

  3 Cf. Carl E. Schorske, Wien: Geist und Gesellschaft im Fin de Siècle, Munich, 1994.

  4 See Brigitte Hamann, Hitlers Wien: Lehrjahre eines Diktators, Munich and Zurich, 1996, pp. 135–50.

  5 Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 22f.; see August Kubizek, Adolf Hitler: Mein Jugendfreund, Graz and Göttingen, 1953, p. 202.

  6 See Hamann, Hitlers Wien, pp. 398, 439.

  7 See ibid., pp. 467–9.

  8 See Julia Schmidt, Kampf um das Deutschtum: Radikaler Nationalismus in Österreich und dem Deutschen Reich 1890–1914, Frankfurt am Main and New York, 2009.

  9 Quoted in Franz Herre, Jahrhundertwende 1900: Untergangsstimmung und Fortschrittsglauben, Stuttgart, 1998, p. 190.

  10 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 20.

  11 Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, p. 224f.

  12 See ibid., p. 2
26f.

  13 Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 36f.; see Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier, ed. Henry Picker, Stuttgart, 1976, p. 133 (entry for 13 March 1942): “He said that he always starts with the end, then browses through some sections in the middle, and only reads the whole book if his initial impression was positive.” For Hitler’s reading habits see Timothy W. Ryback, Hitler’s Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life, London, 2009, p. 114f.

  14 Adolf Hitler, Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1944: Die Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims, ed. Werner Jochmann, Hamburg, 1980, p. 380 (dated 1 Sept. 1942).

  15 Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, p. 232; see Monologe, p. 224 (dated 24/25 Jan. 1942): “How I enjoyed all those Wagner performances after the turn of the century! Those of us who were his loyal fans were known as Wagnerians.”

  16 See Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, pp. 229, 234; Hamann, Hitlers Wien, pp. 91–5; Dirk Bavendamm, Der junge Hitler: Korrekturen einer Biographie 1889–1914, Graz, 2009, pp. 333–6.

  17 Based on Birgit Schwarz, Geniewahn: Hitler und die Kunst, Vienna, Cologne and Weimar, 2009, pp. 21ff. (“Hitlers Lieblingsmaler” chapter).

  18 Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler wie ich ihn sah: Aufzeichnungen seines Leibfotographen, Munich and Berlin, 1974, p. 29. See transcript of a conversation with Heinrich Hoffmann from 5 Dec. 1953: “Hitler said it was his fondest dream to own one of Grützner’s works.” IfZ, Munich, ZS 71. Further, Hamann, Hitlers Wien, p. 103; Albert Speer, Erinnerungen: Mit einem Essay von Jochen Thies, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1993, pp. 56f.

  19 Hitlers Tischgespräche, p. 146 (dated 27 March 1942). See Otto Wagener, Hitler aus nächster Nähe: Aufzeichnungen eines Vertrauten 1929–1932, ed. Henry A. Turner, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin and Vienna, 1978, p. 461: “Stuff like this bears no resemblance whatsoever to painting. It is merely the mental excrement of a sick mind.”

  20 See Schwarz, Geniewahn, pp. 82f.

  21 Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, pp. 206f. For Ringstrasse see Philipp Blom, Der taumelnde Kontinent: Europa 1900–1914, Munich, 2008, p. 71.