Posted on 02/12/2005 5:04:07 PM PST by MadIvan
HE PLUNGED Europe into an orgy of destruction, but his bedside reading was by a popular children’s author. He carried his luggage in a vast train of exquisite crocodile-skin suitcases, but would not sleep under a continental quilt.
Fascinating new insights have emerged into the private life of Adolf Hitler from his former chambermaid, who has admitted that she used to stand in his slippers while cleaning his room.
And the maid, who doubled as a minder for Eva Braun, has also said that the Führer’s mistress was sidelined by the wives of the Nazi leader’s henchmen.
Anna Plaim, who came from the Austrian village of Loosdorf, 50 miles from Vienna, was 20 years old when she was employed as a chambermaid for Hitler in 1941.
In a book to be published this April, she describes how she worked at the Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps.
Perched on the mountainside at well above 5,000ft, Hitler used the residence to impress foreign dignitaries and to dream of a glorious future for the Reich. He met Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, at the Berghof in 1938 and is believed to have planned the 1941 invasion of Russia there.
Plaim has described in the book, Bei Hitlers (At the Hitlers), how the Führer slept in a Spartan bedroom.
She said: "I recall it as being a very simple bed. Even then it surprised me that the Führer did not even have a proper down quilt over his bed. He just made do with a blanket and covering. Eva Braun, on the other hand, did have a big thick down quilt.
"In front of the bed were his slippers, [UK size 10], which by the way I slipped into myself. I can’t tell you why exactly, but I had this desire to stand in the Führer’s slippers."
In contrast to the austere bed coverings, Hitler had a luggage collection which would not look out of place in the swankiest international hotel.
Plaim said: "There was this huge cupboard filled with the most exquisite cases. They were mostly made from crocodile skin leather. They were in a huge pile almost to the ceiling."
While even the world’s dictators need their slippers and their luggage, Hitler’s choice of reading material has raised eyebrows among experts in German literature.
The book on his bedside table was written by the 19th century author Wilhelm Busch, who is most famous for his satirical illustrated children’s stories.
His most famous work is Max und Moritz, written in 1865, which features the naughty deeds of two young pranksters.
Paul Bishop, Professor of German at Glasgow University, said: "This author is a very strange choice for Adolf Hitler. It’s odd to think that he had an author most known for children’s books as his bedside reading. He was a very strange man, of course."
Eva Lehr, the assistant librarian of the Glasgow branch of the Goethe Institut, the German cultural centre, said: "If anything, this makes Hitler even more incomprehensible for me. It seems quite a contradiction that a man who did such things had books by a children’s author."
Bei Hitlers, which is being published to tie in with the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, is part of a series of books and films in Germany which have attempted to ‘humanise’ the dictator and the Third Reich. A recent film, Der Untergang (The Collapse), portrayed the ageing and disillusioned Hitler as a broken man.
The film sparked a national debate in Germany when it was released last summer about whether it was fitting for a German film to portray Hitler as anything other than a monster.
But a Jewish historian said that the humanisation of the Nazis would help to communicate the reality of the Nazi terror.
Dr Nathan Abrams, a modern history lecturer at Aberdeen University, said: "As a Jewish historian, I’m personally in favour of anything which humanises the history of the Third Reich because it demystifies what happened. There’s this notion that the Nazis were some kind of inhuman personification of evil, but the fact is that the atrocities of the Holocaust were carried out by very ordinary people. In some ways, the more we realise that these were people like us, who wore slippers and read all kinds of books, the better we can be aware of the whole horrific reality."
Plaim’s account of life at the Berghof adds weight to the suggestion that Hitler did have a sexual relationship with Eva Braun, even though the two slept in separate rooms.
Some have claimed that Hitler shunned women, and may have been homosexual.
But Plaim added that Braun was sidelined at the Berghof: "Whenever Gerda Bormann, the wife of [Nazi Party chief] Martin Bormann, was there, then she was more important. The same applied to Emmy Göring, the wife of [Luftwaffe chief] Hermann Göring. Frau Göring was the First Lady of the Reich. "
Plaim admits having been a fan of Hitler at the time, but the adoration turned to loathing after the war when she learned of the horrors of the Reich and visited Auschwitz.
She said: "As soon as visits to Auschwitz were possible I went there with my husband Karl. I can still see the huge glass windows with the piles of dentures, the masses of hair and mountains of spectacles. On one suitcase I saw the address of a Jew from St Pölten, just a short distance from where I came from.
"After that visit I was completely shattered. I can no longer even understand my enthusiasm for Hitler. I don’t know. I can’t now understand why so many people were so gripped by him."
Bei Hitlers will be published this April by Droemer/Knaur (Munich) in German. Plans for any English edition have yet to be decided.
SilentServiceCPOWife wrote:
I just don't see how people found his ranting appealing.
He seemed to be out of control during his speeches. That would have frightened me.
I get very uncomfortable when liberals do it now, so it's difficult for me to understand why so many Germans liked it at the time.
__________________________________
It's partly just the nature of the German language. Anything said loud sounds like a rant.
We haven't had a spellbinding orator in the USA since Lincoln, imo.
Although FDR's attempts were pretty scary at times.
What about Ronald Reagan?
Curious about Max and Moritz?
I was so I went over to ebay and now post some of the customer reviews. I understand why ole Adolph would like that stuff. Some of it is a tad sadistic.
Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908) is known as the author of "Max and Moritz," but the scope of his works is much broader. He is not an author of children's books in the first place. He wrote many stories of satire and slapstick humor not primarily aimed at children, illustrated by his own drawings - for which he is justly famous. Some people even regard him as the father of the modern comic strip. Had he worked in our time, his equals would be the likes of F. K. Waechter, Tomi Ungerer, Jean-Jacques Sempé, and Ronald Searle.
Although the two cannot be compared, Busch's "Max and Moritz" ranks in Germany on the same level as Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" in the English speaking world. Wherever an Englishman would quote Lewis Carroll's "Alice", a German is likely to quote Busch.
Children won't catch Busch's gentle satire in "Max and Moritz." The whole concept of satire is not familiar to them, of course. But while the little ones breathlessly follow the naughty pranks, Dad smiles at the fun Busch makes of the adults in "Max and Moritz." Widow Tibbets is a good example. While professing tender feelings for her chicks, she is in reality rather practical minded. So when Max and Moritz manage to kill her chickens - and the rooster, for that matter - she grieves, but not too deeply:
When the worthy Widow Tibbets
(Whom the cut below exhibits)
Had recovered, on the morrow,
From the dreadful shock of sorrow,
She (as soon as grief would let her
Think) began to think 'twere better
Just to take the dead, the dear ones
(Who in life were walking here once),
And in a still noonday hour
Them, well roasted, to devour.
In fact, Walter Arndt's translation in this edition is very good and captures precisely Busch's style.
Let me add a word of warning to trusting parents. Busch shares the mischievous streak in Max and Moritz, and while his two young protagonists play rather violent tricks on the townspeople - a taylor almost drowns and a teacher gets his face burned from an exploding pipe - Busch himself plays the most violent trick on Max and Moritz. In their last prank they cut open the grain sacks of a farmer who finds the two boys in their hiding place, drags them to a mill and has them ground to pieces, which - Gary Larson would have loved that part - are being eaten by two of the Miller's ducks:
"In with 'em!" Each wretched flopper
Headlong goes into the hopper.
As the farmer turns his back, he
Hears the mill go "creaky! cracky!"
Here you see the bits post mortem,
Just as Fate was pleased to sort 'em.
Master Miller's ducks with speed
Gobbled up the coarse-grained feed.
The good and upright people of the village are so relieved. Good riddance to Max and Moritz, they think. But of course they put that more politically correct:
Through the place in short there went
One wide murmur of content:
"God be praised! the town is free
From this great rascality!"
In short: this is great stuff for the kids if you manage to explain the fine points. As a starting point I recommend to brand the pranks of Max and Moritz as "very naughty" and take it from there. Once the kids begin to understand that the grinder is an even worse (adult) version of the two boys' malicious pranks you have won half the battle.
Hitler was also fond of American wild west writers usually
of the dime novel sort, and seemed to take his images of
American behaviour from them. I would suppose he was exposed
to these before WW. I. When he was living in the hostel and
bumming around the streets trying to get accepted into the
Art school,or perhaps after he was rejected by them, and was
reduced to painting post cards.
Not bad, but hardly spellbinding.
His only great speech was at the Goldwater convention, imho. He coulda been a contender, but he let political realities shut him up.
-- Damn shame.
I imagine this is where the cartoon strip, the Katzenjammer
Kids was drawn?
I used to love those guys, they always got it in the end,
but it never stopped them.
Is being a great orator even useful anymore? Wouldn't it be wasted on the average person?
Adolf Hoitler
Benito Mussolini
Juan Dopmingo Perón
Winston Spencer Churchill
That's very interesting. I didn't realize how much stage management was involved in his speeches.
What about Lenin? Do you consider him a great orator?
What about Trotsky?
I hope you don't mind all of these questions. I find the subject very interesting.
SilentServiceCPOWife wrote:
Is being a great orator even useful anymore? Wouldn't it be wasted on the average person?
Can you think of anyone that has that potential?
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