Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 (141 page)

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. 226f.

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).