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.
Do you think that Stalin had Lenin killed? I read once that Molotov said something along the lines of if Lenin had lived he would have made Staling look like a lamb in comparison.
"Staling" should have been "Stalin".
BTTT! Great article.
I'm no expert on the subject, but I would agree regarding Tony Blair.
And you're "only" tri-lingual? You slacker. ;-)
I know about the assasination attempt and the strokes, but one of the books I read about Lenin suggested that Stalin had him poisoned.
#
I just realized that it's after midnight, so I'm going to have to get going. I've enjoyed our conversation. It's been very informative.
Have a good night.
You know, in actuality I believe Billy Graham has been a great orator, fully capable of swaying the masses with his words. Many would say that Martin Luther King was a great orator also. Tony Blair is a great orator. He speaks beautifully and persuasively. Lech Walesa was a great orator in his heydey.
I grew up reading Max und Moritz at my grandparents'. My mother thought the stories horrid and wouldn't allow them in our house, but I read them wide-eyed each time I got the chance. Disney never allowed truly bad things ever to happen. It was exciting to read stories where they did.
.... a certain unspecified "Mr. Dean" going, shall we say, a little "over the top" perchance?
(Disclaimer: any semblance to persons real, fictional or imagined is wholly and completely coincidental)
Reagan rocks, and his one-liners are invincible, but what about ......
John Kerry!!!!!
?
HA HA HA HA HA!
Hitler also took some of his ideas on eugenics, purity of the Aryan race & all that, from Margaret Sanger. Libs don't seem to remember that her pro-abortion stance was for the elimination of certain races & types of people. She wanted to see the forced sterilization of blacks, as well as the mentally handicapped, the poor, etc. If she were alive today, even Planned Parenthood wouldn't want her. Which is ironic, since she was its founder.
Thanks for the great insight into the various orators!
That did happen in the US, BTW.
BTTT
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