Hitler
Page 22
These idiosyncrasies had the intended effect on his entourage. The fact that he was distant from everyday events in the Party, and never discussed anything as an equal, but rained down interminable monologues on his ‘interlocutor’, seemed to his supporters to be evidence of his extraordinary Führer quality. The fact that his day was normally unstructured, he avoided systematic and disciplined work as much as possible, and had the tendency to surprise those around him with ‘lone-wolf’ decisions were features his retinue interpreted as marks of his ‘genius’. The fact that he ignored day-to-day politics in favour of megalomaniacal fantasies confirmed to his followers that he was a ‘visionary’. His rigid adherence to decisions once made, which was in reality motivated by the fear of losing face and diminishing his aura as ‘Führer’, was interpreted by Party members as clarity of purpose and consistency. The fact that he was capable of expressing his individual phobias in terms that turned them into vivid, collective anxieties, and at the same time of presenting his audience with violent scenarios in which these threats were destroyed, was interpreted by his devotees as just one more exceptional gift.
In his demeanour, too, Hitler attempted to live up to his role as leader of a radical party of the New Right. Not least to distinguish himself from the stereotypical dignitary, frequently seen in the upper echelons of the political Right, who cultivated the style of Wilhelmine Germany, he continued to appear in a light-coloured trench coat and fedora and with a riding crop, which in the eyes of contemporaries amounted to dressing down. He enjoyed turning his engagements outside Munich into long automobile tours – from 1925 onwards he drove around in a large and showy Mercedes – frequently in the company of members of his entourage. When he was in Munich he was to be found almost every afternoon spending long periods at Café Heck or in the palace gardens café opposite.94
Hitler was extremely conscious of his outward appearance, constantly fearful of committing a solecism by making what he saw as an inappropriate impression.95 In long sessions with his personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, he worked out a repertoire of poses for portraits that would present him to the public. In the majority of these pictures, which were then often circulated as postcards, he appears with an intentionally determined expression in mostly rigid and commanding poses, now in a suit and affecting to be a serious politician, now in the uniform of an SA member as a comrade ready for battle, with the intense expressiveness and expansive gestures of the orator or as a relaxed countryman in his Lederhosen.96 Group portraits with Party comrades show him in an unchanging pose with an inscrutable expression, hands clasped in front of his stomach. Not only in photos but also in the majority of his public appearances his gestures made a rehearsed and stereotypical impression, for example, his practice of always greeting Party comrades with a firm, manly handshake and ‘penetrating’ look; the way in which on official occasions he presented himself as a lover of children; even his fits of rage at Party events.97 As we shall see, his appearances as an orator were pre-planned from the first moment to the last and increasingly took on the form of a ritual.
Just as Hitler hoped to create an impenetrable impression as a politician, so the financing of his lifestyle remained impenetrable too. At first he lived in ostentatiously modest circumstances in two small furnished rooms in Thierschstrasse in Munich. Even at this stage he spent a large part of his leisure time on the Obersalzberg above Berchtesgaden. He had had frequent stays there since the spring of 1923, either alone or with Party comrades. In 1925 he had written sections of the second volume of Mein Kampf there in the ‘seclusion of the mountains’. On these visits he would at first stay in various boarding houses, but in 1928 he made use of an opportunity that was opening up to rent the Wachenfeld house on the north-eastern slope of the Obersalzberg. Hitler brought his half-sister Angela from Vienna to keep house for him in his new refuge.98 He kept the fact that he had a holiday home hidden from the tax authorities, however, claiming he had rented the house as a home for his sister and that he was seldom there and then only as a guest.99
In 1929, before the NSDAP’s breakthrough as a mass movement, he gave up his two rooms and moved into a luxurious apartment on Prinzregentenplatz in Munich. His patron Bruckmann stood surety for the rent with the landlord. Hitler took the Reicherts, from whom he was renting in Thierschstrasse, with him as caretakers to the new flat, where along with a servant and his wife they occupied the spacious servants’ quarters.
Hitler told the tax office100 that he lived from his income as an author, mainly (in some tax years exclusively) from royalties from the sales of Mein Kampf: in 1925 these had been almost 9,500 copies, in 1926 almost 7,000, in 1927 a little more than 5,600, in 1928 a little more than 3,000, and in 1929 more than 7,600 copies. His whole taxable income accordingly amounted in 1925 to 19,843 RM and was less than that in the following years: in 1926 it was 15,903 RM, in 1928 as little as 11,818 RM. His outgoings far exceeded his income, however. In the second half of the 1920s he spent 300 RM each month on his private secretary, 200 for an additional assistant, and 200 for his driver. On top of that were sums of 800 RM per year for social security payments, as well as car insurance and taxes of about 2,000 RM per year, plus travel costs and the cost of a loan. If the upkeep of the little house in Berchtesgaden (from 1928 onwards) and a large flat in Munich including staff (from 1929 onwards) are taken into consideration, it is hardly surprising that by his own admission he was predominantly running a deficit.101 In 1926 Hitler declared his outgoings to the tax office as being 31,209 RM, while his income was 15,903. As he explained to the tax authorities, he was financing the deficit by means of a loan. In 1927 the deficit amounted to 1,958 Reich marks, for which he gave the same explanation. In 1928 and 1929 his declared income exceeded his outgoings. In 1929, in addition, he had, on the evidence of these documents, repaid his bank debts, which is hardly believable on the basis of the sums given. The only explanation can be that he received additional income and/or donations that the tax office was unaware of.
Hitler’s staging of his public persona as the ‘Führer’ who was above it all extended to every aspect of life, including his relationships with women. He had already had difficulties with such relationships, but from now on his role as ‘Führer’ gave him the opportunity to confer deeper meaning on his awkwardness. Although it was part of the bohemian lifestyle that Hitler consciously adopted at this time to be seen frequently in the company of young women (and he clearly had nothing against them being taken for his lovers) a wife, as he repeatedly impressed on those around him, was something that he, as a popular party leader, could not afford; Germany was his ‘bride’.102 If we look more closely at his relationships with these female companions, there is some justification for the view that, contrary to rumour, these were in fact harmless associations. Just as he had no interest in friendships, so he was indifferent to love affairs. This supposition of course takes us into the realms of speculation, but the signs all point in the same direction.
Eugenie Haug, two years younger than Hitler, a Party member since 1920 and the sister of Hans Haug, Hitler’s first driver, was frequently seen with him in 1922/23. Although it was rumoured at the time that they were ‘engaged’, there is no foundation for such a claim.103 In 1925 Adelheid Klein, who, aged twenty-two, joined the re-founded NSDAP with great enthusiasm and began work as an editorial assistant with the Völkischer Beobachter, got to know Hitler, who frequently invited her to the theatre or to a café. She too came soon to be regarded as his lover, but if her memoirs are to be believed the relationship did not go beyond the exchange of a few kisses. After about a year Hitler discontinued it.104
Around this time Hitler met Maria Reiter, then sixteen, from Berchtesgaden, and they were friendly for several months; in the middle of 1927 he broke it off. A series of letters he wrote to her has survived in which, on the one hand, he uses harmlessly romantic words such as ‘my sweet girl’ and, on the other, gives her good advice in a fatherly tone. There is nothing to suggest that the friendsh
ip turned into a sexual relationship. During the war Hitler himself in his evening monologues recalled ‘Miezel’, whom, like the other women he met during those years, he had been unable to marry because of his political career. There were, he said, ‘several opportunities’ but he ‘did not take’ them: ‘I made myself draw back.’105
Maria July,106 the daughter of a publican whose pub on Gärtnerplatz Hitler frequented, knew him as a schoolgirl in 1922. In 1927 she joined the NSDAP; the following year she accompanied Hitler, his sister Angela, and Angela’s daughter Geli on two visits to Berlin. In Hitler’s circle she was known as the ‘little princess’, an allusion to a role she had played at a Fasching party.
Hitler’s relationships with these young women follow a particular pattern: he liked to have their company and enjoyed being seen with them. In his estimation, the combination of the mature, busy, famous man and the unspoilt ‘girl’ ensured that his image as ‘Führer’ was enhanced by his also being seen as ‘successful with women’ and that at the same time he could go on enjoying admiration and have a grateful audience even during his leisure hours. Hitler showered these young women with compliments, gazed at them romantically, and possibly exchanged affectionate words with them, but that seems to be as far as these relationships went. After a time he let them slide, presumably at the point when he could no longer avoid the question of whether his intentions were serious.
They clearly never ended in a quarrel: in later years, after he had become Reich Chancellor and Eva Braun was regarded as his girlfriend, Hitler maintained what might be called diplomatic relations with various women: Jenny Haug, Adelheid Klein (now Schultze), Maria Reiter, Maria July, and Sigrit von Laffert (whom Hitler met in 1932 when she was sixteen and invited to his home on occasions, although always in company with others),107 were members of the exclusive group of about a hundred people that regularly received personal gifts through Hitler’s adjutancy.108 In addition, there are various indications of continuing correspondence.109
Geli Raubal, his niece, was to assume a much greater significance in Hitler’s life. This young woman, who travelled to Berlin in 1927 with Hitler and Maria July, had finished her school leaving examinations in Linz a short time before and had moved to Munich, where she first of all registered as a medical student but then took singing lessons instead. She began a romantic relationship with Hitler’s driver Maurice, but when Hitler discovered the relationship he dismissed Maurice and demanded that Geli put off the planned wedding until she should come of age in June 1929. As a result of pressure from Hitler, Geli finally broke off the engagement in the summer of 1928, after which she seems to have had a number of other relationships.110 When in 1929 Hitler rented his large apartment on Prinzregentenplatz, Geli moved in too and was registered as the tenant of the couple who were his caretakers and lived in the servants’ quarters.
Vivacious, fun-loving, and headstrong, Geli was Hitler’s constant companion in the years 1929 to 1931. He went shopping with her,111 took her to the theatre112 and to the usual social occasions held by Party comrades, and she accompanied him when he was invited privately to people’s homes.113 She appeared with him at political demonstrations114 and at the Party Rally in August 1929,115 and frequently accompanied him to Berlin, where she was introduced to Party comrades.116 In July 1930 she attended the Passion Play at Oberammergau with Hitler and Goebbels.117 In the Party she was soon treated as Hitler’s lover, and in fact there were rumours of a triangular relationship involving Hitler, Maurice, and Geli.118
Geli Raubal fitted Hitler’s preference for somewhat naïve and childlike women. The fact that they were related allowed him, in spite of the speculation, to make her part of his household, while at the same time removing the issue of a shared future, which he wished to avoid. Taking the pattern of his previous relationships as a yardstick, we can be fairly confident that in this one too ‘Uncle Adolf’, as Geli called him, did not engage in any sexual intimacy. What mattered to him was to have a companion and audience close to hand, someone who admired him and who looked presentable in public. In addition, he liked to appear as the generous uncle dispensing treats. His opposition to the marriage with Maurice suggests that he also intended to safeguard Geli’s virtue. He evidently watched over her as though she were his personal possession.
As far as we know, Hitler had no sexual contacts with women either before or during the First World War or in his early Munich years. There are grounds to suppose that, after his release from detention, by which time he was thirty-five, this was still the case. In view of Hitler’s personality, it seems altogether plausible that his life was asexual: any intimate relationship would simply have been incompatible with his arrested emotional development with regard to other people and with his self-perception as a public figure through and through with an extraordinary historic mission. But whatever the nature of his relationships with members of the opposite sex as individuals may have been, for him as leader of the ‘movement’ and future ‘saviour’ of Germany, women were simply insignificant.
* Translators’ note: Quotation from the first part of Goethe’s Faust.
7
Hitler as a Public Speaker
For the time being, however, Hitler’s impact was restricted to the Party. Because of the ban on his speaking in public, imposed in 1925, he was mainly forced to seek an outlet for his oratorical skills in closed meetings for Party members. In other words, he was speaking to audiences that were already largely on his side. The dominant motive behind these appearances was not to win people over but to reinforce the ties binding the Party leader and his followers, and he regarded such occasions as an important method of gaining acceptance in the NSDAP for his claim to be the absolute leader. It is hardly surprising that these addresses were ideologically charged to a high degree and marked by an aggressive attitude towards the opponents of National Socialism.
These speeches were not particularly frequent: in 1925 Hitler made thirty-eight speeches, fifty-two in 1926. This reticence was due not only to the fact that he had to spare his voice, but to his careful management of his public appearances. They were regarded as a mark of distinction for the local branches in question, which were obliged to drum up as many Party comrades as possible and to comply with particular requirements. Thus, for example, Hitler wanted his speeches to be taken down in shorthand as he spoke, so that he would be prepared in case of any later legal challenges.1 Over time a clear routine, in fact an established ritual, developed for ‘Hitler Meetings’: first, the expectant audience was put in the right mood; then Hitler would walk solemnly into the hall to the cheers of his supporters, accompanied by a group of local Party dignitaries; then came the official welcome, followed by the speech itself, which lasted several hours and grew in intensity through the careful calibration of his rhetoric; finally there was tumultuous cheering by Hitler’s supporters, which, as a kind of communal oath of loyalty, ended in a final, united ‘Sieg Heil’.
The fact that for two years Hitler made speeches almost exclusively to Party members had a lasting effect on his development as an orator. Interjections, disturbances, or altercations with opponents, of the kind that were altogether normal up to 1923 (even if the SA had often suppressed them with brute force), were now impossible. Hitler was speaking to firm supporters, who awaited his appearance with enthusiasm and wished to have their essential beliefs confirmed. These people belonged to a small, fanatical community of the faithful, a marginal group of extremists within the growing stability of the Weimar Republic. By contrast with the mass rallies of 1923, dominated by febrile expectations of an imminent and final showdown with the hated democratic system, Hitler now did not need to motivate the undecided or those on the margins. Instead, his supporters expected to be given a long-term view, a vision of a Nazi Germany. Hence his speeches did not engage with everyday politics and focused instead on ‘fundamentals’. He was, after all speaking to the ‘chosen few’, who were already capable of understanding the ‘truths’ he proclaimed. From the point o
f view of his supporters, the speaking ban imposed on him in any case only went to show how desperate a Republic must be that was driven to repressive measures to prevent Hitler from reaching the broad mass of people with his message – an interpretation that served to reinforce the connection between him and his audience.2
When addressing his supporters, Hitler’s speeches were always strongly anti-Semitic. In short, the Jews were responsible for all the country’s fundamental problems and disasters.3 For him they were the masters of international capital4 as well as the puppeteers who controlled ‘Marxist’ parties and had been behind the 1918 revolution.5 By means of this two-pronged attack they now had almost total control over Germany and had penetrated deep into the nation: ‘Our blood is being poisoned and bastardized. We are tolerating those who create our social problems and incite our nation. As Germans we must be racially aware and anti-Semitic.’6 If the Nazis were to form the government they would ‘make ruthless use of the power given to us legally by the sacred numerical majority to exterminate the Jews by means of this wholly legal power’.7 He even went as far as to suggest that in ‘fighting the Jews’ they were doing Christ’s work: in a report on a speech from the end of 1926 we read: ‘For thousands of years Christ’s teaching has formed the basis for the fight against the Jews as the enemy of the human race. What Christ began but was unable to finish, he (Hitler) would complete.’8