Hitler

by Peter Longerich

  2. Margot Schindler, Wegmüssen. Die Entsiedlung des Raumes Döllersheim (Niederösterreich) 1938–1942. Volkskundliche Aspekte, (Vienna, 1988) esp. 253ff. It concerns the military training area Döllersheim, today Allentsteig.

  3. Franz Jetzinger, Hitlers Jugend, Phantasie, Lügen – und die Wahrheit (Vienna, 1956), 21ff.

  4. See in detail: Hamann, Wien, 69ff.

  5. On the suspicion about his Jewish descent see Jetzinger, Jugend, 28ff. The assertion is based on the memoirs of Hans Frank written while in prison in Poland after 1945. See Hans Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens, Deutung Hitlers und seiner Zeit auf Grund eigener Erlebnisse und Erkenntnisse. Geschrieben im Nürnberger Justizgefängnis (Munich-Gräfelfing, 1953), 330f., but there is no evidence for it. See Hamann, Wien, pp. 73ff.; Kershaw, Hitler 1, 35f. See Jean Paul Mulders, Auf der Suche nach Hitlers Sohn. Eine Beweisaufnahme (Munich, 2009), on a DNA analysis carried out a few years ago confirming Hitler’s descent from the Hiedler family.

  6. On his career see Jetzinger, Jugend, 45ff.

  7. Ibid., 48.

  8. Ibid., 58ff.

  9. Ibid., 69.

  10. On Alois Hitler Jr see Zdral, Hitlers, 129ff.

  11. Jetzinger, Jugend, 57.

  12. Linzer Tagespost (LT), 8 January 1903.

  13. BAB, NS 26/17a, report by a member of the NSDAP-Hauptarchiv’s staff of 21 June 1940 concerning an interview with senior Customs Inspector Hebenstreit in Braunau, and a report by the Hauptarchiv about an interview with Frau Rosalia Hörl, born 9 June 1862, in Braunau. On 18 September 1933, the Wiener Sonn- und Montagszeitung published the results of research carried out by a British journalist in Leonding, according to which a former classmate of Hitler’s, Max Sixtl, reported that Alois had been very strict towards Adolf and his son had been afraid of him. According to Jetzinger, reporting after 1953, Hitler’s guardian, Mayrhofer, had told him that, although Alois had not beaten Adolf, he had scolded and reprimanded him. Alois had had no use for religion, he said. See Jetzinger, Jugend, 69f.

  14. The ‘Freie Schule’ (Free School) association was established in Vienna in 1905 and was largely supported by Liberals. The reference to the Freie Schule in the Linzer Tagespost can be regarded as evidence for these efforts, which were already under way. See Helmut Engelbrecht, Geschichte des österreichischen Bildungswesens. Erziehung und Unterricht auf dem Boden Österreichs, vol. 4, (Vienna, 1986), 128.

  15. LT, 8 January 1903.

  16. Wiener Sonn- und Montagszeitung, 18 September 1933; see Hamann, Wien, 22.

  17. Because of the limited information about Hitler’s childhood, psychoanalytical literature on this topic is highly speculative and reaches very different conclusions. Here are just some examples: Edleff H. Schwaab, Hitler’s Mind. A Plunge into Madness (New York and Westport, CT, 1992) claims that Hitler suffered from paranoia as a result of a traumatic childhood; Helmut Stierlin, Adolf Hitler. Familienperspektiven (Frankfurt. a. M., 1975), argues his mother subjected him to excessive and unrealizable expectations; Alice Miller, Am Anfang war Erziehung (Frankfurt a. M., 1980) blames the development in Hitler of a destructive personality on the extremely brutal educational methods of his father. Other authors do not see the reasons for Hitler’s abnormal development as lying in his childhood. Thus, for example, Gerhard Vinnai, Hitler – Scheitern und Vernichtungswut. Zur Genese des faschistischen Täters (Giessen, 2004) blames a serious trauma caused by war service, while others focus, highly speculatively, on Hitler’s alleged psychiatric treatment in the Pasewalk hospital (see footnote 213). We shall not explore any further the serious pathological disorders attributed to Hitler in the literature. However, Paul Matussek, Peter Matussek, and Jan Marbach, Hitler – Karriere eines Wahns (Munich, 2000), put forward a thesis that is not only plausible in the light of Hitler’s family background, but also conforms with Hitler’s behaviour in various periods of his life. It claims that Hitler’s personality was characterized by a narcissistic fixation on his public self, combined with a repression of his private feelings, which resulted in his finding any public shame or exposure intolerable.

  18. On his time in primary school see Jetzinger, Jugend, 88ff.

  19. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (286–290 edn) (Munich, 1938) (MK), 5ff.

  20. LHA Linz, NL Jetzinger, No. 44, letter from Huemer, 12 December 1923, referred to as a statement in Hitler’s defence in Jetzinger, Jugend, 100ff., quote 105. On his time in the Realschule see also pp. 96ff.

  21. Elke Fröhlich and others (eds), Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, 2 parts, 9 and 15 vols (Munich, 1993–2006) (Goebbels TB), 3 June 1938; Werner Jochmann (ed.), Adolf Hitler, Monologe, im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1944. Die Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims (Hamburg, 1980) (8/9 January 1942).

  22. Jetzinger, Jugend, 103.

  23. On the illness see Hamann, Hitlers Edeljude. Das Leben des Armenarztes Eduard Bloch (Munich, 2008), 33. See also MK, 16; Jetzinger, Jugend, 148ff.; Hamann, Wien, 33; August Kubizek, Adolf Hitler. Mein Jugendfreund (Graz, 1995), 62.

  24. Österreichisches statistisches Handbuch, 1900, 9: 58 778 (1900 Census) and 1910, 6: 67 859 (1910 Census).

  25. Kurt Tweraser, ‘Das politische Parteiensystem im Linzer Gemeinderat’, in Fritz Mayhofer and Walter Schuster (eds), Linz im 20. Jahrhundert, vol. 1 (Linz, 2010), esp. 94–133; Kurt Tweraser, ‘Dr. Carl Beuerle – Schönerers Apostel in Linz’ in Historisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Linz (1989), 67–84; Evan Burr Bukey, ‘Patenstadt des Führers’. Eine Politik- und Sozialgeschichte von Linz 1908–1945 (Frankfurt a. M./New York, 1993); Harry Slapnicka, Oberösterreich unter Kaiser Franz Joseph (1861 bis 1918) (Linz, 1982).

  26. Wiener Sonn- und Montagszeitung, 18 September 1933; see Hamann, Wien, 22ff.

  27. On the relatively complicated history of the various German nationalist organizations in the Habsburg Monarchy see in particular Lothar Höbelt, Kornblume und Kaiseradler Die deutschfreiheitlichen Parteien Altösterreichs 1882–1918 (Vienna and Munich, 1993).

  28. Goebbels TB, 27 April 1944. Although Hitler does not give the title, the evidence is clear. Hitler was complaining about the closure of the paper, which did in fact occur in January 1944. On the other hand, assertions that Hitler read extreme right-wing papers during this period are based on speculation. André Banuls, ‘Das völkische Blatt “Der Scherer”. Ein Beitrag zu Hitlers Schulzeit’ in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (VfZ) 18 (1970), 196–203, refers to an anti-Semitic satirical paper that appeared in Linz without, however, providing any evidence that Hitler actually read it. Hamann, Wien, 37, refers to the Linzer fliegenden Blätter, a strongly anti-Semitic ‘Little Völkisch Satirical Magazine’, as its subtitle put it. But the editor only made the claim that Hitler had read it in 1938 (BAB, NS 26/17a, Notizen für die Kartei, 8 December 1938).

  29. Helga Embacher, ‘Von Liberal zu National: Das Linzer Vereinswesen 1848–1918’, in Historisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Linz (1991), esp. 79ff.

  30. According to a spokesman for the Turnverein Linz. See LT, 16 March 1904.

  31. See the LT, e.g. 26 June 1903, on the summer solstice of the Deutsche Bund für Oberösterreich, which was praised by the keynote speaker as a truly Germanic festival; 26 June 1904, on the summer solstices of various associations according to old German custom; the issue of 20 June 1905 refers to the vigorous awakening of the German national idea and German national consciousness in our German people of the Eastern Marches during recent years.

  32. LT, 19 December 1905.

  33. In 1900 the Verein Südmark held its general meeting in Linz. See Embacher, Vereinswesen, 98; in July 1902 the Austrian gymnasts held the VIIIth German-Austrian Gymnasts’ Festival in Linz. See LT, 18–23 July 1902. In 1905 the Deutsche Schulverein held its 25th anniversary in the national colours of black, red, and gold in Linz; ibid., 9 June 1905. On the festival committee’s announcement see numerous other articles during May and June. In May 1905 the centenary of Friedrich Schiller’s death was commemorated in the Oberrealschule, which Hitler had left the previous year. His former history teache
r, Poetsch, gave the ceremonial address on the topic ‘Schiller – Role Model for and Educator of his Nation’, in ibid., 6 April 1905, 9–11 May 1905; on the speech see the report of 10 May. In October a monument to Turnvater Jahn was erected in the same spirit. See ibid., 3 October 1905.

  34. Slapnicka, Oberösterreich, 41; Hamann, Wien, 29ff.

  35. Österreichisches Statistisches Handbuch, 1903, 14: 3535, and 1911, 13: 1953. They contain the census results for 1900 and 1910. See also Slapnicka, Oberösterreich, 42.

  36. Slapnicka, ‘Linz, Oberösterreich und die “Tschechische Frage” ’, in Historisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Linz (1977), 226.

  37. LT, 10 December 1905, ‘Tschechische Anmassungen in Linz’ about a quarrel in an inn. See ibid., 23 December 1905, ‘Unglaubliche Frechheit’ about letters sent by the Bohemian Industrial Bank in Brünn to German businessmen ‘addressed entirely in Czech’.

  38. Described in detail in Slapnicka, Oberösterreich, 41ff.

  39. LT, 17 and 18 March 1904.

  40. Andrew G. Whiteside, Socialism of Fools. Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism (Berkeley, Calif. and Los Angeles, 1975).

  41. Embacher, Vereinswesen, 77ff.

  42. Tweraser, Beuerle, 79.

  43. MK, 54f.

  44. Eleonore Kandl, Hitlers Österreichbild (Ms. Vienna, 1963), Appendix, has collected various statements from interviews with former classmates of Hitler. Three of the eight interviewed could remember an informal ‘Jewish boycott’ in the senior classes, which also had an impact lower down the school (Dietscher, XI, Stockhammer, XLII, Müller, XX), while one of the interviewees maintained that Jewish pupils had not been treated differently (Estermann, XXXI). However, overall it is clear that the pupils were much more hostile to the clergy and to Slavs (Keplinger, XXIV, Estermann, XXX). By contrast, Kubizek, Hitler, 94, gives more weight to anti-Semitism in the Realschule. Brian McGuiness, Wittgensteins frühe Jahre (Frankfurt a. M., 1988), 97, cites a note by Wittgenstein, which he made on joining the school in 1903: ‘Realschule class. First impression: “Rubbish”. Attitude to Jews’. There is no evidence for any contact between Hitler and Wittgenstein, who was in a more senior class.

  45. RSA 3/2, Doc. 35. In Hitler, Monologe, 21 September 1941, he mentions similar quarrels with Czech fellow pupils in the Realschule in Steyr.

  46. Kandl, Österreichbild, 25ff (on Poetsch) and 39ff. (on Huemer).

  47. MK, 12f.; RSA 3/2, Doc. 46.

  48. See Jetzinger, Jugend, 108; Kandl, Österreichbild, 38.

  49. Jetzinger, Jugend, 106f.

  50. MK, 13.

  51. Ibid. 10; in his Table Talk Hitler described how he used to annoy his religion teacher by using black, red, and gold pencils (Monologe, 8/9 January 1942).

  52. On the conditions at Hitler’s school see Kandl, Österreichbild, 11ff.; Hamann, Wien, 23ff.

  53. Jetzinger, Jugend, 131.

  54. MK, 20.

  55. BAB, NS 26/65, piano teacher Joseph Wend’s (Prewratsky) memories of Hitler, whom he taught for four months.

  56. LHA Linz, NL Jetzinger.

  57. On criticism of Kubizek see Jetzinger, Jugend, 139ff. After 1945 Jetzinger worked with Kubizek but then fell out with him. Among other things, he accused Kubizek of using Jetzinger’s material without permission in the book he published in 1953. For criticism of Jetzinger and Kubizek as sources see Hamann, Wien, 77ff. Hamann notes that Jetzinger is too critical of Kubizek and that his account of Hitler’s youth contains a number of significant mistakes, for example, in particular, his assertion that Hitler was not present at the death of his mother in Linz. Also, his estimate of Hitler’s income during his period in Vienna is too high.

  58. Kubizek, Hitler, 28ff.

  59. Ibid., 23f.

  60. Because of a number of inconsistencies Jetzinger, Jugend, 142f., considers this account completely implausible and an invention of Kubizek’s. However, forty years later Kubizek himself traced this lady and discovered that she had received an anonymous letter, the content of which suggests that it was from Hitler.

  61. Kubizek, Hitler, 86.

  62. Ibid., 71ff.

  63. Ibid., 75ff.

  64. In noting that Schwab was retelling the sagas of early German history Kubizek overlooked the fact that the popular edition of Schwab’s work actually contains the sagas of classical antiquity. However, this confusion of classical antiquity and German myth is typical of Hitler’s mental universe.

  65. Kubizek, Hitler, 84.

  66. Ibid. 97ff., quote on pp. 98 and 91ff. on his early interest in political topics.

  67. Ibid., 44.

  68. Ibid., 107ff., quote 108.

  69. Ibid., 121ff. Hitler sent Kubizek four postcards from Vienna, which, although they cannot be clearly dated, are the most important source for this trip. See Jetzinger, Jugend, 151ff.; Hamann, Wien, 42ff.

  70. Kubizek, Hitler, 124ff.

  71. Hamann, Wien, 82.

  72. MK, 18f.; on the circumstances of the examination see Hamann, Wien, 48ff. The rejection announcements from the Academy of Art (from the years 1907 and 1908) are quoted in Konrad Heiden, Adolf Hitler. Eine Biographie, vol. I (Zurich, 1936), 20. See also Jetzinger, Jugend, 174.

  73. MK, 19; he also recalls the conversation with the Rector in Hitler, Monologe, 29 October 1941.

  74. See below, p. 25.

  75. Kubizek, Hitler, 135ff.; Hamann, Wien, 53ff. Jetzinger is definitely wrong in his statement in Jugend, 175ff., that Hitler appeared in Linz only after the death of his mother.

  76. Hamann, Hitlers Edeljude. Das Leben des Armenarztes Eduard Bloch (Munich, 2008). Bloch’s article appeared on 15 and 22 March 1941 in Collier’s Magazine. Its content is identical to the memoirs he had already written on 7 November 1938 and made available to the NSDAP Hauptarchiv (BAB, NS 26/65). The fact that he submitted this text for publication in 1941, when he no longer had to be concerned about the Nazi authorities, suggests that his memoirs are authentic.

  77. Hamann, Wien, pp. 57ff. corrects the account in Jetzinger, Jugend, 180ff. in particular in relation to the amount of the sums involved.

  78. Correspondence in Institut for Zeitgeschichte (If Z), F 19/19. See also Hitler, Monologe, 15/16 January 1942; Hamann, Wien, 59ff. and 87.

  79. Kubizek, Hitler, 146ff.

  80. Ibid., 156.

  81. Ibid, 156ff.

  82. Hamann, Wien, 98ff.

  83. Kubizek, Hitler, 200ff.

  84. Ibid., 163ff., quotes 165, and 173ff.

  85. Ibid., 167.

  86. Hamann, Wien, 59.

  87. Kubizek, Hitler, 195ff., Quotes 195; Hamann, Wien, 89ff.

  88. Kubizek, Hitler, 240ff., recalls a joint visit to parliament and Hitler’s subsequent tirades about the nationalities question (240ff.), Hitler’s complaint about the swamping of the city by non-Germans (248f.), a workers’ demonstration in front of the parliament, whose violent dispersal they both observed (246f ), and Hitler’s attitude to Schönerer and Lueger (248).

  89. Ibid., 250ff.

  90. Ibid, 238 and 228ff.

  91. Ibid., 234ff.

  92. Ibid., 253ff.

  93. Heiden, Hitler, 30; Hamann, Wien, 196. The author claims the Rector’s alleged advice to study architecture came after the second rejection. However, according to MK, 19, Hitler received it before his mother’s death.

  94. Kubizek, Hitler, 19, 21, 69, 77 and 109.

  95. Ibid., 125.

  96. Ibid., 21 and 36f.

  97. Birgit Schwarz, Geniewahn. Hitler und die Kunst (Vienna, 2009), 51ff., points out that around the turn of the century a cult, indeed a mania, for genius existed, whose representatives took their cue in particular from Schopenhauer, Hitler’s favourite philosopher. There was a particular tendency to portray the unrecognized genius as a heroic man of will. Hitler took as his models for this role among others Anselm von Feuerbach, one of his favourite painters (whose alleged lack of recognition was in fact based on Hitler’s misunderstanding of his biography) and Richard Wagner. In Wagner’s
case Hitler was influenced above all by Friedrich Pecht’s biography and Houston Chamberlain’s interpretation. Wagner also provided the basis for his anti-Semitic interpretation of his lack of recognition and Wagner’s operas provided numerous examples of outsiders who asserted their will. See above all Fest, Hitler, 73ff; Wolfgang Weimer, ‘Der Philosoph und der Diktator. Arthur Schopenhauer und Adolf Hitler’ in Schopenhauer Jahrbuch 84 (2003), 137–67; Schmidt, Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens, vol. 2 (Darmstadt, 1985). Hitler’s life as an artist and the influence of his self-image as an artistic genius on his role as a military commander are the main focus of the exceptionally fruitful book by Wolfram Pyta, Hitler. Der Künstler als Politiker und Feldherr. Eine Herrschaftsanalyse (Munich, 2015).

  98. MK, 19f.; on the second rejection see Hamann, Wien, 196.

  99. Jetzinger, Jugend, 218; Anton Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Weg begann in München 1913–1923 with a Foreword by Ian Kershaw (Munich, 2000), 39f.

  100. Entry in the accounts book, which at this time was being kept by Johanna Pölzl, Klara Hitler’s sister: ‘Lent Adolf Hitler 924 Kronen Johanna Pölzl’ and ‘Adolf 924 Kronen’, quoted in Gerhard Marckhgott, ‘“. . . Von der Hohlheit des gemächlichen Lebens”. Neues Material über die Familie Hitler in Linz’ in Jahrbuch des Oberösterreichischen Muselvereins 138/1 (Linz 1993), 267–77; Hamann, Wien, 195f.

  101. Hamann, Wien, 206; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 51.

  102. MK, 20ff.

  103. Ibid., 24f. and 40ff.; Eberhard Jäckel (ed.), Hitler. Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924 (Stuttgart, 1980) (JK), No. 325; on the legend of Hitler as a building worker see Hamann, Wien, 206ff.

  104. New Republic, 5, 1, and 19 April 1939; BAB, NS 26/64, My encounter with Hitler; ibid., Letters to Franz Feiler (Innsbruck), including a letter of May 1933. On Hanisch’s report see Hamann, Wien, 222ff. and 265ff.

  105. Ibid., 229ff.

  106. Ibid., 239ff.; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 67ff.; Pyta, Hitler, 105ff.

  107. Hamann, Wien, 245; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 69.

  108. Hamann, Wien, 246ff.; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 69ff.; BAB, NS 26/64, Hanisch letters.