Hitler in World War I

Page Title

A SUBSERVIENT HERO

At the beginning of World War I, Hitler, who had been making a modest
living as a street-painter for one year in his beloved Munchen,
volunteered to join the Bavarian King's Regiment and was affected to the
16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment.

It is worthwhile noting (1) that from June 1913 to August 1914 Hitler
enjoyed Munich and the Bavarian life. He managed quite rapidly to earn as
much as 100 Marks per month whereas a metal worker used to make no
more than 80 marks. Hitler actually was pleased with what he was doing but
was still not on his way to fame and success. The idea that Hitler was a
complete failure is false : Munich gave him a second and small chance and
he grabbed it taking full advantage of his modest artistic success even
temporary.

A modest and charming young man

Hitler might have been a very nice person at that point, but firstly celebrity was still escaping
him and secondly the war was going to resurrect the old bitter young and selfish painter who
had once lived in Vienna and was never very far. Hitler could have lived the semi-vegetative
life of a second-class painter for the rest of his days had the world not come to the brink of
total destruction in 1914. In this respect, the war was his salvation board and he welcomed
the beginning of the hostilities with great effusion : he was happy to come to the service of
“motherland Germany” whereas he was even not a German citizen.

In Mein Kampf, he wrote for the public record that " I did not want to fight for the Habsburg
state, but was ready at any time to die for my people and for the Reich which embodied it."
Excessive words written for political purpose in 1924/25 but which have probably some
genuine sincerity. Hitler became a German citizen only in 1933 in order to be appointed
Chancellor by Marshall Hindenburg, the President of the Republic of Weimar.

Hitler was traumatized by WW1 and his horrors :
he held Jews and Reds responsible for the defeat
of Germany but he was more enthusiastic at its
outset. In the above picture he is seen in Munich
acclaiming the declaration of WW1.

To lessen the impact of such a rhetoric, one must remind the reader that even the Father
of psychology, the Jewish psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, also fell under the spell of those
primordial forces in 1914 : Freud, a Viennese himself, also got caught up in the political
delirium of the time as did many of his contemporaries. At fifty-eight years of age, Freud
was ever conscious of being an Austrian, and he was proud that Austria had
“demonstrated its virility to the world”. Freud believed the Austrian Empire, torn by
dissension and shrinking, would now regain its lost territories and once again become a
major world power. He had no doubts about the justification of the war -nor its outcome.
He believed Austria had acted correctly and Germany had done the proper thing in
honoring its promise to Austria. To an acquaintance Freud has even stated that all his
libido was given to Austro-Hungary !!!

As for Hitler, he was so convinced of the rightness of his analysis that, as soon as the
3rd of August 1914, he wrote a “supplique” (humble petition) to King Ludwig III of Bavaria,
begging the honor to be accepted into a Bavarian regiment. Although issued by an
Austrian citizen, this petition was accepted and Hitler was overwhelmed with gratitude:
“Thus started for me, and for all the German people, the most sublime and the most
unforgettable period of all my earthly existence (sic).”

The Reds, this dangerous group.

His moral and determination were never affected during the war in spite of all the
atrocities and horrors he witnessed during four long years. Lance Corporal Hitler never
relented in his enthusiasm, except at the very end of the war when he started uttering
harsh judgments about the responsibilities, the profiteers and the main actors of the
conflict.” “More than once, he wrote in Mein Kampf, I was tormented by the idea that, if
Providence had given me the power or the will of our propaganda machine, the fate of the
fight would have been very different.” An amazingly chilling statement uttered with a
foreboding accuracy that will predict the wrongs of what will occur in the ‘40s. As on
many others, the horrors of the war had a terrible effect on Adolf and they severed him
from the old background of political, religious and social principles prevailing in the pre-
war Christian monarchist Europe.

Hitler and Freud were not alone in
their enthusiam, young german
students marched joyfully to enlisting
in 1914. The reality of gas war will
quickly dampen their enthusiasm

The war opens a wellspring in people’s minds; loosening the constant flow of dormant new ideas
and aspirations for reforms, whatever their political persuasion be they socialist or communist. At
that time, Socialist and Communist sympathizers were all tagged as “Reds”. In Hitler’s mind, as in
the minds of millions of others, the Reds were a dangerous group.

However, in August 1914, Hitler has not yet completely traveled the road to this state of mind. He
was drafted as Privy and on October 1914, Hitler's regiment completed its training and the
brigade received its colors. Like two million other German volunteers, Hitler was elated at the
prospect of facing the enemy, "I am terribly excited," he wrote the Popps, "I hope we shall get to
England." He was assigned the mission of running dispatches to the front and back to
headquarters which he did with outstanding bravery during all four years. Promoted to Lance-
Corporal after the 1st battle of Ypres, he was granted the Iron Cross 2st class as soon as
December 1914.

Hitler was very proud to be
a courageous and efficient
estafette although a bit nut
according to his officers

Although, Hitler was caught in a lot of serious fighting, the only injury he received was a minor shell
splinter to the face. In October 1916, however, he did become a war casualty. It was near Bapaume, a
shell landed near his foxhole and Hitler emerged with a serious wound to his left thigh. Later in 1917,
after the 3rd battle of Ypres, Hitler was granted the Military Cross for Merit, 3rd class with swords but he
was never promoted to Sergeant. On May 9, 1918, Hitler received his third citation for a feat performed at
Fontaine (France): the Regimental Decoration for "outstanding bravery in the face of the enemy." A week
later he also received his “Medal for Wounded” for his previous leg wound. As one of Hitler's officers,
Lieutenant Horn, would state, "If Adolf Hitler had been promoted to the rank of sergeant, the regiment
would have lost one of its best dispatch carriers." Furthermore, Erich M. Remarque probably referred to
Hitler in his novel, All Quiet on the Western Front when he wrote about "one of the front line characters as
the clearest thinker among us and therefore only a lance-corporal."

My time will come, don't worry

In August 1918, after the failure of the massive German offensive, Hitler received his
fifth and sixth medals. One was the Military Service Medal, 3rd class, for outstanding
service, the other was The Iron Cross, 1st Class, "for personal bravery and general
merit." Colonel von Tubeuf commented about Hitler, “There was no circumstance or
situation that would have prevented him from volunteering for the most difficult,
arduous and dangerous tasks, and he was always willing to sacrifice his safety and
life and tranquility for his fatherland and for others.”

The recommendation for Hitler's Iron Cross First Class was signed on July 17, 1918
by Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Freiherr von Godin and read: “As a runner his
coolness and dash in both trench and open warfare have been exemplary, and
invariably he has shown himself ready to volunteer for tasks in the most difficult
situations and at great danger to himself. Whenever communications have been
totally disrupted at a critical moment in a battle, it has been thanks to Hitler's
unflagging and devoted efforts that important messages continued to get through
despite every difficulty.” The man who put forward the paperwork for the hardware
was the regimental adjutant, Captain Hugo Guttman, a Jew. Put more simply, one can
think that Hitler found during the war many opportunities to indulge in his Wagnerian
taste for heroics and death.

Greek heroes of Antiquity

In all, it is not overstated to think that, during the war, Hitler’s bravery was
comparable to the Greek heroes of Antiquity (2). Moreover, he was very much
appreciated by his comrades for his simplicity and his phenomenal knowledge of
everything. Ignaz Westenkirchner, a fellow runner, said: “Adolf was the serious kind
always busy with serious matters. He could talk about everything and us, simple
soldiers, we were very much impressed and we loved it. Hitler was always the one to
buck us up when we got downhearted: he kept us going when things were at their
worst but he couldn't cook! That was the one thing he couldn't do.” Some will support
the idea that his military capacities were so appalling that the only convenient job for
him was dispatches runner and it might be true, as well.

Just after the war, Hitler liked to
put on those tragic looks of a
man in the know

In the rare moment of lull during the war, Hitler read. His favorite author became Arthur Shopenhauer,
notably “The World as Will and Representation”, where he sustained that man’s sufferings come from
his failure to express and to implement his primitive will to its full extent. Furthermore Schopenhauer
categorically denied the existence of the "freedom of the will" in the conventional sense and concluded
that religions have no other goal than deter man to release his brutal primal force.”

True or not, those views had a huge influence on the soldier Hitler who was confronted with violence,
death and incredible sufferings. Schopenhauer’s ideas made their way in Hitler’s mind among his own
and notably rough conceptions of the world. Ironically, Schopenhauer’s views were supported and used
by Sigmund Freud (whom Hitler will hate later on]) although Hitler would never be aware of this as he
never knew that Freud had enthusiastically supported the declaration of war in 1914. Sigmund Freud’s
books ended up in a Nazi Germany bonfire, but it is ironical to notice that both Hitler and Freud’s minds
were not always as far away as we could imagine.

In any case, we must admit that the daily life at the front and the horrible scenes that Hitler witnessed
during those four war years seemed to bear testimony of the validity of Schopenhauer’s views and of the
massive failure of religions. Hitler, like many other “thinkers” at the turn of the century, saw what they
wanted to see and drew the conclusions that fit their pre-existing prejudices. They refused to consider
that WWI did not consecrate the triumph of Schopenhauer’s ideas but the blatant victory of the primitive
will of men. However the peace brought a poison pill : the failure of a way of life based on the Church, the
colonial system, the Monarchy, and a rigid conception of social relations. Hitler drew the lessons of this
catastrophic heritage in his own special way.

Closer to Hell than to War

During these years of misery at the front, Hitler pursued his painting activities: several of his watercolors
represented war scenes or caricatures of comrades or officers. One of the most famous is the “Holweg”
(the sunken path, probably sunken by shells). Hitler’s regiment will be engaged in the most murderous
and violent battles of the war: Ypres (1914 and 1918), Bapaume (1916), the Somme (1917) that he
described later as “closer to Hell than to War.” It is a miracle that the Lance Corporal Hitler survived all
that.

After his wound to the thigh in 1916, Hilter was withdrawn from the front for two months but he insisted to
go back quicker than he might have, because he could not stand the defeatist atmosphere at the rear,
and the hide-out mentality in the capital where the “Jews were getting richer and richer.” Back at the
front, Hilter eas joyously reunited with his dog, Fuchsl, (formerly owned by an English officer) and sight of
the faithful animal cheered him up so much; Hitler burst into tears.

It must be stated that Hitler seemed to have displayed a bit of over-zeal in serving the army and his duties
as dispatch runner. He volunteered for too many tasks for the benefit of high ranking officers what some
historians considered as revealing a “lèche-cul” (brown nose) mentality in disguise. Hitler was no
stranger to idolization of some men, for instance; colonel Ludendorff and Lieutenant-General Hindenburg,
future President of the Weimar Republic, were Hitler’s main heroes. In their wake, the Lance Corporal will
become in 1933 the Chancellor of the Third Reich and the Wechmacht, the SA and the SS will swear an
oath of total unconditional allegiance to a simple Lance Corporal of WWI.

Far was the time when
young Adolf was
enthusiastically acclaiming
the war that would
regenerate -according to
Freud- Austria's virility (sic)

Hitler and his dog Fusch
who used to belong to a
British soldier and went
astray from British
trenches to German
trenches.

This reveals how low the morale and the self-confidence of the German people had
fallen after WWI. In fact, Hitler never gave up his former ambitions during the war: "You
will hear much about me," Hitler told a comrade, "Just wait until my time comes." If Hitler
was a brown nose, it is out of ambition rather than by lack of character. It is possible he
had other motives : he needed to get from those high ranking and prestigious officers the
recognition that his own father and the "jewish academic establishment" of Vienna
denied him.

When, in the 1920s, he met Hindenburg, Hitler showed a surprising respect close to
subservience. Author Konrad Heiden wrote that Hitler took subordination seriously down
to the smallest details: "To respect one's superior officers, never to contradict, to submit
blindly --that was his ideal, as he declared before...".

In the opposite photograph Adolf Hitler is seen humbly bent down in front of the imposing
stature of the hero of 14-18, obviously impressed by the man. However this apparent
show of subservience might hide the secret goal of using Ludendorff and Hindenburg;
which is exactly what Hilter did in 1923 during his abortive coup in Bavaria and later in
1933 when he betrayed his protector Marshall von Hindenburg who had been earlier
more lucid: "Hitler is a queer fellow who will never become Chancellor, he said in 1931,
the best this Czech corporal can hope for is to head the Postal Department."

In any case, one fact lingers: in the trenches Adolf behaved with great courage and
displayed an amazing “esprit de corps”; wlling to sacrifice and expose himself to great
perils. However, after his return to the front in 1917, things started to change in his mind:
young officers without experience replaced older ones, who were either dead or
transferred to safer grounds. The younger officers are inexperienced, sometimes
cowardly, often arrogant and stubborn and they send to their deaths thousands of good
soldiers; many of then Hitler’s comrades. Adolf Hitler could not take it anymore and he
became disillusioned. Nothing is worse than an enthusiastic man who has lost his
dreams. Hitler’s disillusionment led to his bitterness becoming anger, and his anger
became hatred; it is this hatred that would lend itself to desire of revenge.

Hitler showed a surprising respect close to
subservience, here to Hindenburg. Author
Konrad Heiden wrote that Hitler took
subordination seriously down to the
smallest details: "To respect one's superior
officers, never to contradict, to submit
blindly --that was his ideal...".This
photograph was taken on 21 March 1933
during the ceremony of the State opening of
the newly elected Reichstag. Marshall
Hindenburg dressed in an uniform of a
Prussian Field-Marshal received the
obeisance of a frock-coated Hitler who
bowed and shook his hand.

Adolf Hitler the proud soldier
became after the war a proud
member of the DAB forefather of
the future NSDAP. Here he is
represented with the brown
shirt of the SA.

Hitler started to despise the higher ranks of the
military establishment: “they could not establish, he
wrote in Mein Kampf, good relations with the
veterans at the front.” If war changes men forever,
Hitler is the most blatant demonstration of this
axiom. Unfortunately, Hitler was changed but not for
the better, by his experiences at the front, thereafter
he kept to three simplistic ideas: 1- only brutal force
will be respected 2- hierarchy and middle
management are a waste of time and energy 3- the
strong arm of an imposed will is preferable to a long
and useless dialogue.

War has been a revelation to Hitler: during those
four years, war -he concluded- taught him that he
had been the recipient of a lot of luck, sheer will can
be a very strong force, but brute force might
overcome everything, solidarity is a myth and that
“the men in charge in high circles” are never really
held responsible of their deeds. One can get away
with anything if one is in the right position with the
right credentials.

Thus, five of misery in Vienna, four years of warfare
in France completed the strange training of this
fragile yet hyper-ambitious autodidact: “Four years
of war, he said later to Hans Frank, are equivalent to
30 years university training in regard to life’s
problems.” Events convinced him forevermore that
man is nothing but a wolf after his fellow man and
only a hand of iron could stop him on the path of
monstrosity or give him the permission he required.
In Adolf’s perturbed mind, Schopenhauer’s ideas “à
la sauce Hitler” – stripped of the railings of
Christianity- started to deliver a new and monstrous
religion: the Nazism. This religion will have its own
bloody masses, its own irresponsible hierarchy and
its own bloody descent into hell.

Until 1918 the Hohenzollerns were very
respected in Germany and Hitler was certainly
one of their most fervent followers. The war will
change this devotion and will bring a Republic
of Weimar whose limitations will bring Hitler
and his nazis followers to power

Hitler, notwithstanding his attention to duty and frequent
willingness to risk himself for his job, was not always
popular and fully appreciated by his superiors. One of
his commanding officers stated one day that “it was
impossible to promote to Sergeant a neurotic guy like
this Adolf Hitler.”

Hermann Rauschning, ex-president of the Senate of
Hamburg and author of two anti-nazi books entitled
Hitler Speaks (London, 1939) and The Voice of
Destruction (New York, 1940), purported that Hitler
should have been deferred to a martial court for
homosexual practices and this is the reason why he
was never promoted as Sergeant. Rauschning’s words
must be taken very cautiously.

In 1933 poor Marshall Hindenburg, the hero of
WW1, tired and skeptical, will accept to
appoint Hitler Chancellor of the Republic of
Weimar that Hitler will destroy immediately to
install a dictatorship and a reign of terror. On
this picture, a hilarious Hitler contrasts
sharply with a defeated Hindenburg who
knows too well he has been hoodwinked

According to Dr. Edmund
Forster, the psy on duty at
Pasewalk Hospital
(Pomerania) where he was
taken, Hitler’s blindness
was more psychological
and hysterical than
physiological.In 1933, the
Gestapo rounded up all
psychiatric records related
to Hitler's treatment and
destroyed them. Dr. Forster
committed suicide in that
same year.

The ruins and devastations of WW1,
here Peronne in northern France in
1918, will have a profund effect on
young Lance-Corporal Adolf Hitler.
But instead of making him a pacifist
and a Socialist like millions of
young soldiers, they will convince
him that only a strong power
impervious to human weaknesses
can save Germanyy and Europe
from the evils of the Reds and the
International Jewry who is-
according to him- eventually the
cause of the war.

A crowd of Jews, war profiteers,
slackers and deserters

Anyway, the last hours of war convinced
Hitler that the world at the rear is rife with
“red” traitors, defeatists, jewish profiteers
and cowards. He was not the only one to
harbor such opinions. In these last hours,
the Count Friedrich von der Schulenberg,
chief of staff of the Crown Prince’s Army
Group, estimated that "the troops were
loyal, fighting heroically, and they could
easily move against Bolshevik mutineers
when they are told how they had been
disgracefully betrayed by the Navy and how
their food supplies were threatened by a
crowd of Jews, war profiteers, slackers
and deserters.”

While laying almost blind on his hospital
bunk and unable to speak, Adolf learned
that the red communist flag (he used to call
it the “red rag”) floated above the roofs of
Pasewalk. The city of Hamburg was already
into the hands of the revolutionaries, the
“red rag” was flying over Cologne, Hanover,
Francfort and Stuttgart. In Munich, a drama
critic and Independent Socialist, the Jew,
Kurt Eisner, had already led a popular
insurrection, seized main military outposts,
raised the “red rag” over the city hall and
proclaimed the Popular Republic of Bavaria.
Eisner’s first move as head of the Bavarian
Republic was to bar newspaper drama
critics from harshly reviewing plays (sic).

Hitler could not believe it. He is said to have
shouted : « Oh nein ! Nein auch meine liebe
Munchen !” (Not my dear Munich as well).
On November the 7 ,1918, a delegation of
civil Germans crossed the line of the front
and let the Allies know that Germany was
ready to sign an armistice. On the 9th,
William II, Kaiser of the German empire,
resigned and Hitler shed tears through his
sightless eyes. Friedrich Erbert, leader of
the Social-Democrats was appointed
Chancellor of the Reich. But Rosa
Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht, founders
of the Spartacus movement (considered
close to Soviet principles), tried to impose a
Soviet Republic: Erbert got upset and
instituted a “German Republic” banning all
reference to the soviet model.

The Republic of Weimar was born: Rosa
Luxembourg was shot some months later;
by people who would later become Hitler’s
supporters. Hitler hated Luxembourg and
constantly referred to her as the “red
plague” or the “Jewish plague”. All those
feeling while he was bed ridden lead him to
have a great vision of his future : he saw
that his way to fame was now not artistic
life but politics. It became clear and evident
that he should enter Politics. "Politics, he
shouted twice from his bed, politics, that's
it".

Another sad picture of Northern France at the end of the
war. Note that Germany knew very few destructions
during WW1 as it was not invaded by the Allies before the
Armistice, bringing a lot of Nationalists to think that
Germany did not lose the war but that defeat was brought
by defeatists and war profiters like the Jews. . In 1945 the
Germans will not be so lucky.

The fault is Rosa Luxembourg's and her jewish friends

Hitler never accepted the armistice and the defeat. When a new recruit suggested towards the
end of the war that further fighting was stupid, Hitler flied into the sergeant with his fists, beating
him. To him the “Reds” and their Jewish friends, like Rosa Luxembourg, were the masters of
revolutionary propaganda and were responsible of the defeat: their treacherous works, he
thought, created an atmosphere of civil unrest, military demoralization, and precipitated the end.
Once more in his life, Hitler was defeated, humiliated, beaten, and disappointed. His love for the
Motherland was shattered into pieces. The Motherland has been raped, he considered, by Jews
and Reds; much the same as Klara Hitler was raped by his father.

He even felt stupid for his love to a nation henceforth banned, humiliated, annihilated, and
starved. In his mind, the armistice of November 1917 became the “crime of November”
perpetrated by the Socialists (2) and a terrible desire of revenge and injustice took over the
sense of anger and despair he had before. This fiery desire will prove over the course of time
unquenchable and inextinguishable.

The capitalist western nations, manipulated by Reds and Jews, have killed his second mother.
He, Hitler, will kill or bring to slavery those who made an orphan of him for the second time in 12
years: in Mein Kampf, he wrote some years later “since the day where I stood beside my mother’
s grave, I had never cried.” Henceforth, the stage was set for the great Nazi horror show and, as
soon as 1919, Hitler knew what sort of world he wanted to write about and to set about creating:
a world without Reds whom he will enslave in Russia to give land to good Nazis and without
Jews whom he will kill everywhere to purify the world. In his first speech after his liberation from
jail in 1924, he will announce :"We must fight Marxism and Judaism not according to middle
class standards but over corpses." The message will not be received in Europe before it would
be too late.

Without the Great War, Adolf Hitler could have perhaps emerge as a tolerable artist. But Wilhem
II, the depressive granson of Queen Victoria, influenced by the Junkers, decided otherwise.

Home

(1) As Walter Frank points out in his remarkable site about Hitler
(2) In addition to the Iron Cross 1st class and 2rd class, Hitler received the Military Cross 3rd
class with swords (Sept.1917), the Regimentsdiplom for outstanging bravery and the
Verwundeterabrechnen (Medal for Wounded) in May 1918 and the Dienstauszeichnung (Service
Medal) 3rd class in August 1918
(3) President Wilson refused to have the Armistice signed by the Kaiser or one of his
representatives. So it was signed by Matthias Erzberger, leader of the left wing of the Roman
Catholic Centre Party in Germany, hence the misplaced hatred of Hitler for the "criminals of
November" who were not even Socialists but progressive Catholics. Erzberger was
assassinated in 1921 by members of the Organisation Consul, a right-wing death squad
operating in Germany in 1921 and 1922. It was formed by members of the Marinebrigade
Ehrhardt, a Freikorps unit.

Four years of massacres and slaughters will bring Hitler to think that
only matters the Triumph des Willens and his party will gladly finance
the propagagandist achievements and chefs d'oeuvre of Mrs Leni
Riefenstahl, one of his best PR agents.

HITLER IN WW1

Destroying Austria to save Germany

In the meanwhile, Hitler welcomed the beginning of the hostilities
between the European nations : “those hours, he wrote in Mein
Kampf, were “like a redeeming of all the frustrations of my youth… I
am not ashamed to say, that in a spur of enthusiasm, I fell to my
knees and praised the Lord with all my heart. (sic)”

It took a special man and a curious mind to voice such comments
and ideas but Hitler was not the usual John Doe on the street: he
applauded with both hands a conflict that was involving the whole of
Europe but, since his childhood in Austria, Adolf Hitler thought that “
the salvation of Germanism implied the destruction of Austria.” For
him, the war was a windfall: it would accelerate the decomposition
of Austria, the fall of the hated Habsburg dynasty and, with Germany’
s victory, would facilitate the Austro-German merger that would
regenerate the German empire and maybe his career, who knows.
Such ideas were actually fairly common in Austria-Hungary in the
1900s : they were certainly shared by all the Pan-German supporters
and even by non-Germans nationalists (Czechs, Slavs, Italians,
Magyars..) who saw in the War the opportunity to get rid of the hated
Hapsburh monarchy. They were going to be served beyond their
greatest expectations.

In 1918, Hitler’s regiment took part in all phases of the
massive offensive: at Soissons, Reims, and in the
Champagne; on the Rivers Ailette, Aisne, and on the
Marne. For three months his regiment was shifted from
one position to another in the giant salient. Hitler saw his
regiment decimated, rebuilt and then decimated time
after time. He became convinced that he was being
spared for a reason: "You will hear much about me,"
Hitler told a comrade, "Just wait until my time comes."
This quote might though be apocryphal.

Hysterical blindness

Even the best of luck always meets its end: A few days
before the war was over, Hitler was hit by mustard gas
exhalations which made him blind and dumb for a time.
According to Dr. Edmund Forster (opposite pic right), the
psy on duty at Pasewalk Hospital (Pomerania) where he
was taken, Hitler’s blindness was more psychological
and hysterical than physiological. Hitler was
consequently placed under the care of Dr. Forster
(picture below right) . What exactly was done to Hitler
while under Dr. Forster's care is uncertain but he was
probably once or twice hypnotized. In 1933, the Gestapo
rounded up all psychiatric records related to Hitler's
treatment and destroyed them. Dr. Forster committed
suicide in that same year.

According to William Schirer, author of the famous “The
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”, Rauschning’s Hitler
speaks is a pre-war propaganda book written in exile at
the request of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Also, according to
Swiss historian Wolfgang Haenel, instead of "about a
hundred conversations" with Hitler, Rauschning actually
met with the German leader only four or five times and
these few meetings were neither private nor lengthy, but
always in the company of high ranking officials while
visiting Hitler in Berlin or Obersalzberg.

Rauschning never had the opportunity to hear Hitler's
intimate views or secret plans for the future, as he had
boasted in his spurious "Memoirs." Propaganda and its
lies are never far away.

This period of his life confirmed his suspicions and prejudices about “Sodom-like” Vienna.
During this time he pursued cultural activities in earnest and eventually became a reference
on many subjects, while still partaking in political debates and showing the sort of social
conscience that many Germans appreciated in that era. In this time Hitler and his landlords,
Mr. & Mrs. Popp, were living in the Schwabing district. This district was considered the
intellectual center of Munich and there were political conversations almost every night
amongst the intellectual residents of the district.

Hitler, however, was never proud and he appreciated the things other people did for him. As
time passed, Mrs. Popp found him very helpful: Hitler would help her around the house,
beating carpets, bringing in the coal or filling her list at the market. The Popps found Hitler to
be a modest and charming young man who kept himself and his room very clean. The Popps'
children and parents were also "very fond of the young man" and felt that Herr Adolf Hitler
was a "nice" person.